the cellar door was securely padlocked, while the rusty condition of
the hasp showed that it could not recently have been opened. The high
wall that bounded the other side of the yard precluded the idea of
the prisoner being able to scale it; so we stood for a moment, out of
breath with excitement and our recent chase, perfectly perplexed with
Scales’s unaccountable disappearance. Williams at this juncture began
ominously to untie his packet of cartridges, and placed them loose in
his ball-bag ready for use, in the eventuality of the fugitive, should
we come across him, declining to surrender when ordered. Knowing the
determined character of my comrade, I knew that Scales’s life, if
he proved obdurate, would not be worth a pin’s fee. (In the days of
the muzzle-loader, it was customary, I may mention, to carry loaded
rifles while escorting prisoners; but since the introduction of the
breech-loader, the practice has been discontinued.)
We searched the yard thoroughly, but found no signs of our man. All the
cellar doors, like the first we examined, were closed. The warehouses
referred to were principally used for the storage of grain; but owing
to the war in progress, trade was interrupted with the Prussian towns
in the Baltic, and little business being transacted, the buildings had
in consequence been shut up. At last a light seemed to break upon the
policeman, who exclaimed: ‘I’m blessed, sergeant, if I don’t think the
cove wasn’t stowed in one of the drayman’s barrels!’
This idea seemed to explain Scales’s mysterious disappearance; so
we started in the direction of the main road, and turning towards
the town, found the drayman unloading barrels at the door of a
public-house. The man, with volleys of the choicest Billingsgate,
stoutly denied that he had afforded shelter to the fugitive; so,
perceiving that it was useless wasting words on him, we again pursued
our search, scarcely knowing in which direction to turn. Pursuant to
my request, the constable proceeded to the police office to report the
matter, in order to have the other members of the force put on the
alert.
I was now in a terrible quandary. Trial by court-martial and reduction
to the ranks, together with a possible sentence of imprisonment, for
allowing the man to escape, stared me in the face; while imprisonment
for Williams was a certainty. My chances of advancement in the service
would be absolutely ruined, I reflected, if I did not recapture the
man, so I resolved, when I had so much at stake, to continue the
search, although I looked for him all night. It was no use hunting for
Scales in the principal streets of the town, as these were patrolled
by military police, intent on apprehending soldiers who showed the
slightest symptom of having had an extra allowance of liquor; besides
being ruthlessly down on delinquents who had a tunic button undone, or
the chin strap not adjusted in the regulation position.
While I was mentally shaping out a course of action, my companion
stopped and excitedly exclaimed: ‘I have it now, sergeant! I’ll bet ten
to one he’s gone to old Nathan’s!’
‘I’m not sure of that,’ I remarked dubiously; ‘but at all events we’ll
go and see.’
Nathan was a rascally old Jew, who, though he was rigorously kept out
of barracks, carried on with the soldiers a brisk business in the sale
of coarse, rank, contraband tobacco. He had ‘agents’ in the different
regiments to further this branch of commerce; and one of his accredited
representatives in ours was private Scales. Besides, the old rascal,
although it had never been brought home to him, was suspected of
purchasing articles of ‘kit’ from ne’er-do-wells, and supplying ragged
plain clothes to deserters in exchange for their uniforms. We lost
no time in making our way to the squalid alley in the slums near the
harbour where the business establishment of Mr Nathan was located; and
when we reached the Jew’s dirty little huckster’s shop, we found him
weighing out a small quantity of a condiment resembling toffee to a
couple of grimy children. Pausing until the juvenile customers had left
the shop, I asked Nathan whether that afternoon he had received a visit
from Mr Scales.
‘No, sergeant; no soldier hash been here,’ replied the Jew, who then
continued in an undertone: ‘Can I do bishness wit you in some goot
tobacco?’
I paid no heed to the old Israelite’s statement, and decided to inspect
the premises myself, without any scruples as to the legality of that
course of action. Placing Williams at the door with instructions
to allow no one to pass in or out, I proceeded, in spite of the
expostulations of Nathan and his threats to call the police, to
carefully search the little back-room behind the shop. No one was
there; so I ascended a rickety staircase, and finding the door at the
top locked, I kicked it open; but the foul-smelling apartment into
which the door led was plunged in utter darkness. Returning to the
shop, I helped myself _sans cérémonie_ to one of a bunch of candles,
and lighting it, returned to the upper room, which, on examination,
proved to be a storehouse for the rags and bones in which the Jew dealt
largely. I opened the shutters of the dirt-incrusted diamond-paned
window, and probed with my gun-barrel every heap of rags; but, to my
disappointment, the fugitive was not concealed in them. Suddenly, I
perceived some glittering particles on the floor, which, on stooping
to examine, I found to be bright iron filings! I was now filled with
a feeling of exultation. Scales had apparently been to the Jew’s, and
thus relieved of his handcuffs.
I once more examined the room. The window was apparently a fixture, and
no one could make his exit without removing the sash. I next surveyed
the roof, and perceived a trap-door giving access to the attics just
large enough to allow a man to enter it. ‘My man is there right
enough,’ I exclaimed to myself in great glee. I then shouted through
the aperture: ‘I know you are there, Scales; it will be better for
you if you come down at once.’ There was no response; so I decided to
have the region explored. I called to Williams to keep a lookout for a
policeman, and almost immediately my comrade shouted to me that he had
secured the services of a constable. I thereupon summoned Williams to
my assistance, leaving the Jew in charge of the policeman. Placing the
rickety table under the trap, Williams speedily crawled through and
gained the attic. Knowing the desperate character we had to deal with,
I considered it expedient that my comrade should be prepared for an
encounter; so I unfixed his bayonet, and handed it to him together with
the lighted candle. Crawling over the creaking joists in the direction
of the gable in which the window was fixed, Williams made a careful
examination of the interior, while in the room below I waited with
breathless excitement.
‘Anybody there?’ I cried.
‘One moment; I haven’t had time to see,’ Williams replied; and then
began to search the opposite end. ‘Come out of that, you rascal!’ he at
length indignantly shouted. ‘I’ve got him sergeant; he’s stowed in a
corner!’
I then heard the fellow hiss out: ‘I’ve got a knife, and if you come
near me, I’ll cut your throat, if I have to swing for it!’
Fearful of exposing my comrade to the peril of a hand-to-hand tussle
with such a ruffian in the circumscribed area of the attic, I called
Williams to the trap-door, and placing a cartridge in my Snider, I
handed it to him. Then mounting the table, I thrust my head through
the trap and held the candle. My blood was now up, and I determined to
order the rascal to be shot if he refused to obey my commands.
‘Surrender, in the Queen’s name!’ I shouted.
There was no response; but the click of the lock of Williams’s rifle as
he placed the hammer at full cock, must have been distinctly audible to
the runaway.
‘If you don’t come out before I count five, you are a dead
man.—One—two—three!’
‘Stop! For mercy’s sake, give me a chance!’ now pleaded the wretch in a
husky whisper.
‘First throw your knife this way, and then come out.’
The villain tossed his knife to Williams, who threw it behind him to
the other extremity of the attic; then leaving his retreat, he crawled
towards us, and I was surprised to see by the dim light of the candle
that he was attired in plain clothes. When he got near us, we were
astonished beyond measure to find that he was not the man of whom we
had been in search, but Scales’s companion the deserter, who had been
suspected of rifling the officer’s room!
‘I own I took the things,’ confessed the man doggedly, seemingly
anxious to make a clean breast of it; ‘but Scales helped me, and old
Nathan put us both on the job’——
‘Scales has been here,’ I interrupted. ‘You may as well tell me what
you know about him; it will be the better for you.’
‘Yes,’ replied the deserter, when he had dropped through the trap on
the floor; ‘I got off his handcuffs, and here they are;’ scattering a
heap of bones and displaying the ‘bracelets,’ each receptacle for the
wrists being filed in two.
‘Now,’ I continued, ‘if you can give me any information that will
enable me to catch Scales, I’ll report in your favour at headquarters.
Perhaps it will save you something when you are tried.—Where is he now?’
‘Well, sergeant, Nathan gave him a suit of “plains,” and he went out. I
don’t know where he has gone. But I don’t mind “rounding” on him, and
I’ll tell you this: he’s to be back here to-night at twelve. Nathan’s
to let him in by the little window that looks into the yard.’
We then descended the stair with our prisoner; and the man perceiving
the Jew, broke away from us, exclaiming: ‘You old villain! if it hadn’t
been for you, I wouldn’t have got into this!’ and before we could
prevent him, struck the miserable Israelite a terrible blow. This act
of castigation, under the circumstances, however, rather pleased me
than otherwise.
Two additional policemen having been summoned, the deserter and Nathan
were taken away in custody. When they had gone, I was rather amused
when Williams informed me that, despite the Jew’s extreme trepidation,
while I was examining his upper storey, his commercial proclivities
did not for a moment desert him, as he attempted to open negotiations
with the private regarding the purchase of his war medals.
Two detectives now arrived to search the premises; but of course
this investigation did not lie within my province. No article of a
criminating nature was found, however, except Scales’s uniform, which
was concealed beneath the Jew’s filthy mattress. I lost no time in
despatching my companion to an adjacent blacksmith’s shop, in order
to have the divided parts of the handcuffs welded together; and this
operation was completed within an hour.
It was now dark; the Jew’s house had been locked up by the police;
so my companion and I turned into the back yard, in order to await
the expected return of Scales. We first made sure that he was not
concealed about the dilapidated outhouses, which consisted of a disused
coal-cellar and shed. In the latter place we set a couple of boxes,
and seating ourselves upon them, with our loaded rifles within reach,
patiently awaited the return of the runaway—prepared, if need be, to
give him a very warm reception. As the night wore on, the sky became
clouded, while the oppressive heat was apparently the precursor of
a thunderstorm. Suddenly, we were startled by a loud clap, followed
almost immediately by a blinding flash of lightning, which, as we could
see from our place of vantage, vividly lighted up the towering chalk
cliffs that overhung the town. Then rain began to fall in torrents, and
the decayed roof of the shed proving most indifferent shelter, we were
compelled to put on our greatcoats. To add to our misery, the floor
became a regular pool, occasioned by the overflow of a huge water-butt.
After a while the storm ceased as suddenly as it had begun; and being
perfectly overpowered with fatigue and the day’s excitement, I fell
fast asleep, and slumbered until Williams shook me up and informed me
that the town clocks had struck twelve. Being stiff and chilled with
the drenching I had received, I got on my feet and took a turn about
the shed, keeping at the same time a wary eye on the wall, every minute
expecting to see the form of the fugitive in the act of scaling it.
The monotony of our vigil was now a little relieved by the appearance
of the Jew’s cat, a large brindled animal, which came purring and
rubbing against us. Williams took Puss in his arms and caressed her for
some time; and when he got tired of this amusement, he stepped over
to the water-butt and, acting on a sudden mischievous impulse, tossed
the animal inside. To our surprise, a howl of pain proceeded from the
interior of the cask; and upon investigation there stood our prisoner
up to the neck in water! Williams had thrown the frightened cat with
outstretched claws plump on his face. The poor wretch was stiff and
numb with cramp, and was perfectly unable to get out of the butt. We
then, with a heavy plank, stove it in near the bottom, and when it was
empty, assisted Scales to the shed, where I made him at once strip
off his wet clothes—with which Nathan had provided him—and assume his
uniform. When the shivering wretch was able to speak, he informed us,
that having returned sooner than arranged, and perceiving the arrest
of the Jew and the deserter, he was so overcome with fright, that he
took refuge in the water-butt, as no other place of concealment was
available. At dusk, he was thinking of getting out of his uncomfortable
hiding-place, when he was deterred by seeing us take up a position in
the yard. He had, he asserted, been nearly drowned by the volumes of
water that poured on his head during the thunderstorm, and confessed
to having been terribly scared by the lightning—a circumstance,
considering his situation, perhaps not to be wondered at. Also, he
admitted, he had actually been concealed in an empty barrel on the
drayman’s cart, and that the driver had further facilitated his escape
by arranging with a fellow-wagoner to have him transferred to his
vehicle and driven to the alley in which the Jew’s shop was situated.
In consideration of the trouble Scales had given us, I had but little
sympathy with his sufferings, and put slender faith in his profuse
promises to go with us quietly. Having replaced on his wrists the
repaired handcuffs, of which the previous day he had managed to get
relieved so speedily, I decided also, by way of making assurance doubly
sure, to strap his arm to that of Williams.
We then set out in the direction of our destination; but Scales, even
supposing he intended mischief, was too much played out to give any
further trouble. At last, to my intense relief, we reached the prison
at daybreak, and I handed Mr Scales over to the custody of a warder.
My comrade and I, after partaking of much-needed refreshment kindly
offered us by one of the prison officials, returned to headquarters,
where I lost no time in reporting the whole circumstances of the case
to the adjutant.
That officer ordered the private and myself to appear before the
commanding officer, a command which at ‘orderly hour’ we obeyed. The
colonel administered to us—to speak paradoxically—a commendatory
reprimand, alternately animadverting on the enormity of our offence in
allowing the man to escape, and praising the qualities of courage and
perseverance we had displayed in tracking and capturing him, together
with the missing thief—‘Conduct,’ as the commanding officer was pleased
to put it, ‘which is creditable to the British army in general, and the
—th Regiment in particular.’
The Jew was committed for trial on a charge of receiving stolen
property; but a day or two before the assizes, he committed suicide by
strangling himself in his cell.
The deserter was handed over to the civil authorities, and received
a long term of imprisonment: and a similar fate awaited Scales when
his term in the military prison had expired. The case of the latter
individual was further considered by the general, who cancelled his
remission of Scales’s discharge with ignominy, so that Her Majesty’s
—th Regiment of foot was happily enabled to get rid of a knave.
I may now relate my final experience with regard to the foregoing
adventure. The sergeant of the barrack-guard reported the roughly
repaired handcuffs to the orderly officer, who mentioned the matter in
the return he sent to the orderly-room. The case was then remitted
to the quartermaster, who had the handcuffs examined by the armourer;
and that functionary having reported them unfit for service, I was
mulcted in the sum required for a new pair. I paid the charge without
grumbling, as, everything considered, I was heartily glad to get off so
cheap.
MONEY LENT!
Young Sixty per Cent. flourishes in the off-streets of the Haymarket
and Regent Street. From his babyhood, money has been the chief joy
of his existence; his infant rattle jingled with silver coins,
and at school he amassed a small fortune by lending shillings at
frightfully usurious rates till ‘after the holidays.’ His chief study
was arithmetic, and the supreme moment of his early life was when
his father playfully gave him the complicated account of an earl of
racing and theatrical tastes to make out, and he succeeded beyond all
expectation, making such a beautifully innocent mistake of forty or
fifty pounds on the side of the firm, that it was felt that such talent
should no longer be wasted at the academy of Dr Birchington. He became
a regular attendant at ‘the office,’ and at the age of twenty, knew as
well as any one with twice his years the worth of any given name on
stamped paper. He succeeded to the general control of the business,
being assisted in the ornamental duties of the position by an elder
brother, who had gone to the bad through the usual channels, but had
always plenty of gossip and good stories for ‘clients.’
The office is a plain room, without picture or ornament, but covered
with a rich soft carpet, and ‘upholstered’ in the very best taste.
The desk is a very solid piece of mahogany, with different keys for
every drawer, and with numerous secret recesses. Should the straits
of fortune at any time drive you to seek the assistance of Sixty per
Cent., it is into this room you will be ushered by the long-legged
boy in the anteroom, who appears to divide his time between cracking
nuts and casting up the figures in a disused ledger; but he has other
uses, and if anybody should be foolish enough to cut up ‘rumbustical’
with the usurer, the youth has his orders. You will find Sixty per
Cent. clean, well attired, and agreeable, seated at the desk; and your
business proving satisfactory, you will be turned over to ‘my brother,’
who will regale you with some spicy anecdotes, an excellent glass of
sherry, and a cigar, and such gossip of the town as may seem to be to
your taste.
Meantime, the boy has been despatched to Berners Street to obtain
information from certain lists in the possession of that mysterious
body known as the T. P. S., which are open to the privileged in that
thoroughfare; and Sixty per Cent. occupies himself with consulting the
rack of books on his desk, containing Burke, Debrett, the Army List,
the University Calendars, the Clergy List, &c., according to what may
be your requirements; and when the boy has returned with satisfactory
accounts of yourself or your securities, your signature on some neatly
written slips of blue paper produces the cheque that relieves your
necessities. ‘Not half a bad fellow,’ you tell your friends; and you
are convinced he is the victim of prejudice. But woe betide you,
should the time ever come when, the end of your tether reached, you
plead delay or ask abatement of your bond! There is no mercy in that
hawk face, pleasantly though it can smile; and the soft, well-kept
hands can strike like a hawk’s talons when the occasion arises. There
are times—usually early, before the ordinary hours of business—when
Sixty per Cent. may be found in conversation at his office with a
shady-looking individual who has ‘minion of the law’ stamped legibly on
his countenance; and the tone in which the usurer utters such sentences
as ‘Broke at Doncaster last week’—‘The writs are out already’—‘Sell him
up, stock, lock, and barrel’—‘Going to bolt, I believe’—‘Hang his wife
and family!’ &c., is rather different from the suave accents in which
he usually addresses his clients.
He is fond of music, and is a pretty regular frequenter of the opera on
Saturday nights during the season; and in the lobby, often manages to
combine a little business with his pleasure, especially in the Epsom,
Ascot, and Newmarket July weeks, when backers have had what is termed
a facer. He sports a smart mail phaeton with a pair of high stepping
bays; and as he drives round the park of an afternoon, he can impart
a pretty considerable amount of information to any friend who happens
to be with him regarding the occupants of the drags and victorias that
they meet. He has his ‘bad times,’ like everybody else, and when, as
occasionally happens, he has an enforced interview with one of Her
Majesty’s judges, he is obliged to listen to some remarkably plain
speaking in respect of his little transactions; and should a vaulting
ambition induce him to seek membership in any more respectable club
than the third-rate ‘proprietary pothouse,’ his _amour propre_ is
liable to be considerably wounded by the extent of the ‘pilling’ he
is subjected to. As a rule, however, he is early taught to ‘keep his
place,’ and ‘recreates’ himself with gambling in stocks, buying old
china, or breeding poultry; jingles the sovereigns in his pocket, and
snaps his fingers at the world and its opinion.
PROFESSOR SHELDON ON BUTTERINE.
Professor Sheldon, who delivered an exhaustive paper on the ‘Butterine
Question’ at a meeting of the Farmers’ Alliance, said that the
quantity of butterine produced in Great Britain was not known, but was
understood to be considerable; nor was the volume of imported butterine
known before the beginning of 1885, because, up to the end of 1884,
it was entered in the Board of Trade Returns under the heading of
‘butter.’ The weight of butterine imported in the four months ending
April 1885 was 308,548 cwt., and in the corresponding months of the
current year the volume of it had risen to 324,275 cwt. The quantity of
butterine imported, at the rate of the past four months, amounts to one
hundred and thirty tons a day, day in and day out, Sunday and Monday
alike, or getting on towards fifty thousand tons a year; and this
over and above what is produced in the United Kingdom. The effect of
the enormous trade on the dairy-farming of this country may be easily
imagined, and foreign dairy-farmers are also feeling the competition
quite as keenly. The Professor admitted that butterine, when made in a
proper way and from good materials, is a wholesome and useful article
of food. He considered it beyond dispute that butter would have been
outside the reach of a vast number of poor people, had not butterine
come in as a substitute and lowered the price. He admitted that
well-made butterine is a very tolerable substitute, though it is not
butter in another form, as some would have us believe. The utilisation
of surplus fat in the form of butterine was about the best possible
way in which it could be used at all as an article of food and in a
systematic manner. The clause relating to the penalties to be imposed
upon retailers who sold butterine as butter, in the Butter Substitutes
Bill before parliament, he considered the most important clause in the
bill, as it concerned the men who had hitherto been the chief offenders.
YOUTH AND AGE.
YOUTH.
When I am old, these hills that bound
My life within their narrow round,
Will be the threshold of the door
That leads to Freedom and to Fame,
And the wide world beyond no more
An idle dream, an empty name;
But I, from cares and troubles free,
Its glories and its joys shall see.
The summer isles of southern seas;
Great battles, glorious victories;
The boundless prairies of the West,
Where red men hunt the buffalo;
Whatever fairest gifts and best
The gods have given to men below—
These, heart of mine, these shall we see
In the brave days that are to be.
AGE.
When I was young, this narrow round
Of hills a glorious world did bound;
Here, on the quiet valley floor,
I dreamed of Freedom and of Fame,
Ere yet I learned they were no more
Than a vain dream, an empty name;
In that glad careless long ago,
The happy hours seemed all too slow.