"THIS IS THE CAT THAT KILLED THE RAT."
GREAT excitement and consternation were prevailing in — Street the next
morning.
John Drinkrow had been absent for a couple of nights—called away to the
north of England to a dying relative—and during his absence a strange
event had taken place.
We might say here that attention to his relations' wishes was not
John's invariable habit, but this kinsman was a rich man, and John
thought that his presence at the bedside might influence the conditions
of the will, and the consequent division of the property. Hence his
venturing on a journey which, even by third-class in a cheap train,
must have wrung the miser's heart by its expense.
But be this as it may, on the second night of his absence "the house
that Jack built" was broken into by a band of practised housebreakers,
and, as if guided by instinct, they took their way straight to the
miser's strong-room, where, having the proper instruments for the
execution of their wicked designs, they had succeeded in forcing open
one box and in carrying off a small bag of gold.
They would doubtless have done more mischief, but the noise that they
unavoidably made, awoke the old housekeeper, Mrs. Curr, who in her turn
roused Tom.
Tom armed himself with a life-preserver, and came down from his room;
but the burglars had already caught the alarm, and two of them made
off; the third, more venturesome or more greedy than the rest, stayed
a moment longer in the miser's room, and was met at the head of the
stairs by Tom. The black-masked figure tried to slip by him, but Tom
made a rush, and as the burglar tried to gain the stairs, Tom struck at
him with his heavy weapon. The blow fell full on the back, between the
shoulders, and the robber, what with the pain and shock of the blow,
what with the blind haste with which he was trying to escape, fell half
way down stairs. To this fall, however, he mainly owed his escape,
for Tom, of course, followed in a somewhat less headlong manner, and
meanwhile the thief had time to pick himself up and make for the back
door by which he had entered. A moment later and his dark form was lost
in the shadows of the night.
It would not have been wise to apply to the police, and thus to make
public the private affairs of the miser; so Tom and his father—for the
latter reached home that day—bore their trouble as they best might,
and tried to make their possessions more secure by the fixing of an
alarum, and by the addition of several modern appliances for further
safety. But the loss the two men had sustained only strengthened still
more their passion for hoarding, until at last John Drinkrow grudged
himself even the necessaries of life; and Tom, though he grumbled at
his father's meanness in the things that touched his own comfort, was
almost as penurious in his way.
Poor Mrs. Curr, the housekeeper, had hard work sometimes to provide
food for the little household with the meagre allowance supplied her.
Since Ratcliffe had gone, John Drinkrow had reduced by one-quarter the
money for the expenses, and it was harder than ever to arrange and
economise.
For Ratcliffe was gone—gone for good; his father's home would be his no
more; and only one of the three people whom he had left behind him at
"the house that Jack built" missed him or wanted him back, and this was
good Mrs. Curr, the kindest-hearted, most motherly body in the world.
She had held her situation in John Drinkrow's family for some years,
and had become really attached to Ratcliffe, who, with all his faults,
had a warm heart, and seemed to be the only on capable of receiving or
giving affection.
Mrs. Curr was not a woman of much education, but she had strong good
sense and high principle. And when she found, after the quarrel between
father and son, that Ratcliffe returned no more, and that no wonder or
anxiety was expressed either by John or Tom, Mrs. Curr became first
distressed, then indignant; and she resolved to find out why her
favourite had been banished from his home, and whether he were not to
come back shortly.
Accordingly, one evening, when she had carried her week's accounts to
her master to look over and correct, as was his wont, she did not move
away with her usual "Good night, sir," but stood in the doorway, almost
filling it up with her portly figure.
John looked up. "What are you waiting for, Mrs. Curr?" said he,
sharply. "You've got your money for next week; why don't you go?"
Mrs. Curr cleared her throat. Hers was a throat that required a good
deal of clearing at times, and just now the process had an ominous
sound.
"Please, sir," said she, at last, "I was jist a-goin' to ask you about
Master Ratcliffe, and when you'll be a-expectin' of him home, for his
room ought to be cleaned, and I'd be glad to know when we're to hev
the pleasure of him back. I wouldn't hev him find his room other than
a welcome home, which clean blinds cost but little, and is worth their
weight in anything reasonable for the genteel effect they perduces.
Why, sir," and Mrs. Curr again cleared that much enduring throat, "in
the last situation as I lived in, my missus (which never would I have
left her if so be she hadn't died)—my missis, she said to me allers,
'Curr, clean blinds is a mark of "genteelity," and folks as doesn't
look after their winder drapery doesn't know what genteelity is, and—'"
"There—there," growled the miser; "hold your noise, Mrs. Curr. Who
cares to hear about your mistress's sayings, or your stupid white
blinds? Save yourself the trouble and me the expense of having any got
up for my son's room, as he's not coming back any more; and listen,
Mrs. Curr, I forbid you to mention his name to me again."
[Illustration: "WHY DON'T YOU GO?"]
The old housekeeper drew herself up, while her cheeks turned the colour
of her own cherry cap-ribbons. "Then, sir," she said, in a burst of
honest indignation—"then, sir, you ought for to be ashamed of yourself;
though, bein' as how I'm a sarvant, it's me that says it as shouldn't;
but I can't see you turn agin' your own flesh and blood, and hold my
tongue. God help us! Where should we be, I wonder, if our Father that's
in heaven treated us as some fathers treat their children! Oh, master,
master! I must have my say this once, and then you can send me away
if you want to; but if poor Mr. Ratcliffe ain't jist the kind of lad
as you wanted him to be, you oughtn't to forget he's been brought up
without a mother; nor he wasn't never a child to be drove, but led,
which you might have led him anywheres, if so be you'd have loved
him. And though I know he's been and acted contrairy, and disobeyed
God's command to obey his parents—which it's only one he's got, worse
luck—there's a second command, which reads t'other way, 'Fathers,
provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.' And it's
discouraged he's been, poor boy, as no one knows better than old Jemima
Curr."
As the brave old woman uttered these last words, she cleared her
throat once more, and braced herself to meet the thunderbolt of John
Drinkrow's indignation, which she thought must fall at once now upon
her devoted head. But, much to her amazement, it did not come. John had
been astonished at his housekeeper's vehemence, and her fearless way of
speaking fairly cowed him for the moment. Besides, he knew her worth
from an economical point of view, and he could not afford to quarrel
with her yet.
So while she waited, expecting her notice to leave, there was silence.
Then the miser looked up, and said, quietly, "If that's all, I'll wish
you good night, Mrs. Curr."
"Good night, sir," said the housekeeper, in a tone that showed her
amazement, and then she trotted off to her own room, where, after
thinking over what had passed, she made up her mind to take the first
opportunity she could get of seeking out Ratcliffe, and of showing him
by every means in her power that he was not forgotten by at least one
of the inmates of "the house that Jack built."
[Illustration]