‘Two hours after banking-time, as usual. What a nuisance he is!’ He
went down-stairs; and about ten minutes later we heard Mr Shillito’s
trap start off. Presently John came back. ‘Ninety pounds, all in gold
and notes,’ he said. ‘I’ve had to lock it up in my desk till morning.’
I may here remark that iron safes for the custody of money and other
valuables were by no means so common in those days, especially in
out-of-the-way country-places, as they appear to have since become.
‘But the money will be quite safe in your desk, won’t it, John?’ asked
Bessie.
‘Safe enough without a doubt, seeing that no one but ourselves knows
of its presence there. Only, as a matter of business, I should prefer
to have had it in the coffers of the bank.’ Presently he added: ‘The
old fellow was half-seas over, as he generally is; and I have no doubt,
with so many houses of call by the way, that he will be soaked through
and through before he reaches home. I wonder whether he goes to bed
sober a night in his life?’
A few minutes later, John kissed us and bade us good-night. Bessie and
I went to the window to see him start; but by this time it was nearly
dark. He waved his whip at us as soon as he had settled himself in
his seat, then he gave the reins a little shake. Black Beryl’s heels
struck fire from the stones as she sprang forward, the gravel scrunched
beneath the wheels, and a moment later the shadows of evening had
swallowed up horse and gig and driver. My sister and I pulled down the
blinds and drew the curtains and rang for Kitty to bring in the lamp.
The evening passed after our usual quiet fashion. We worked a little
and read a little and played some half-dozen duets, and chatted
between times, till the clock pointed to half-past ten, at which hour
we generally retired for the night. My last duty every evening was
to go the round of the house and satisfy myself that all lights were
out, that the fires were safe, and that all the doors and windows were
properly secured. When this duty had been duly accomplished to-night,
the drawing-room lamp was extinguished, and then Bessie and I took our
bed candles and marched up-stairs, leaving darkness and solitude behind
us. Mary Gibbs and Kitty had retired long ago.
My sister’s room and mine adjoined each other, with a door of
communication between, which generally stood partly open at night, for
the sake of companionship. The windows of both rooms looked into the
garden, which ran in a wide strip along that side of the house, and
was shut in by a wall some seven or eight feet high, beyond which were
three or four meadows, and then the boundary-wall of Dorrington Park.
It was close on one o’clock—as I found out afterwards—when I woke
suddenly from a sound sleep. The instant I opened my eyes the room
was illumined by a vivid flash of lightning, and in all probability
it was a peal of thunder that had broken my slumbers. Another flash
followed after a brief interval, succeeded again by the deafening
accompaniment. My sleep was effectually broken. I arose, flung a shawl
over my shoulders, and crossing to the window, drew back the blind and
peered out. As long ago as I can remember, lightning has always had a
singular fascination for me. As a child, I loved to gaze upon its vivid
splendours, and in this respect at least years have left me unchanged.
A board creaked as I crossed the floor.
‘Is that you, Barbara?’ asked my sister from the other room.
‘Yes, dear. I am going to look out for a few minutes. Is not the
lightning beautiful?’
‘Very beautiful; only I wish it were anywhere rather than here,’
answered Bessie, who at such times was just as nervous as I was the
reverse.
The flashes followed each other at intervals of about a minute. I
had witnessed three or four when suddenly I gave a start, and an
exclamation broke involuntarily from my lips. The last flash had
revealed to me the figures of two men in the act of climbing over the
garden-wall. One of the men was a stranger to me; but in the other,
instantaneous as was the revelation, I recognised the somewhat peculiar
face and figure of a man named Dethel, whom my brother had employed
temporarily during the last week or two in the garden, our regular
man being laid up at the time with rheumatism. There was something in
the looks of the man in question which had set me against him from
the first; but if we were all to be judged by our looks alone, what
would become of us! For aught I knew to the contrary, Dethel might be
an honest, hard-working fellow, with a wife and children dependent on
him; but for all that, on the days he was working for us I carefully
refrained from going into the garden.
And now, here was this man, and another with him, effecting a
surreptitious entry of the premises at one o’clock in the morning! Such
a proceeding could have but one end in view. Two questions at once
put themselves to me. Firstly, were these men aware that my brother
was from home for the night, and that only three helpless women and a
girl were left in the house? Secondly, had they by some means become
cognisant of the fact that a few hours previously Mr Shillito had paid
my brother a considerable sum of money, which must necessarily still
be somewhere on the premises? In my mind there was little doubt that
both these facts were fully known to the men. My brother’s movements
were as open as the day, and Dethel had doubtless ascertained from
Reuben the groom that his master would be from home on this particular
night; while as for Mr Shillito, everybody knew how he talked in his
loud-voiced way about his most private affairs when he had taken more
to drink than was good for him. At the bar of more than one tavern that
evening, every one who might chance to be within hearing would not
fail to be informed that Mr Shillito had just paid John Waldron his
half-year’s rent.
These thoughts flashed through my mind almost as quickly as that flash
which revealed so much. Breathlessly I waited for the next flash. It
came, shattering the darkness for an instant, and then it, too, was
swallowed up. The men were no longer visible. Between the two flashes
they had had time to drop on the inner side of the wall, where the
thick clumps of evergreens which clothed that part of the grounds
would effectually screen them from view. At that very moment they were
doubtless making their way stealthily towards the house. What was to
be done? Never had I realised so fully as at that moment how helpless
a creature a woman is. Drawing my shawl more closely round me and
putting on a pair of list slippers which I wore about the house in
cold weather, I crept noiselessly out of the room. At the top of the
stairs I halted and listened; but all was silence the most profound.
The corridor out of which the bedroom opened was lighted at the
opposite end by a high narrow window which looked into the garden. To
this window I now made my way, and there, with one ear pressed to the
cold glass, I stood and listened. Presently I heard the faint sound
of footsteps, and then the subdued voices of two people talking to
each other. Directly under the place where I was standing was the back
drawing-room, which opened on the garden by means of a French-window;
and although this window was secured at night by shutters, I had an
idea that the security in question was more fancied than real, and
was of a kind that would be laughed to scorn by any burglar who was
acquainted with his business. If the men had made up their minds
to break into the house—and with what other object could they be
there?—the probability was that they would make the attempt by way of
the French-window. Even while this thought was passing through my mind,
the voices of the men sank to a whisper, and a low peculiar grating
sound made itself heard. Evidently they had already begun to force the
fastenings of the window. I crept back to my room, feeling utterly
dazed and helpless.
‘Is that you, Barbara? Where have you been?’ asked my sister.
Going into her room, I sat down on the side of the bed and told her
everything in as few words as possible. She was of a somewhat timid and
nervous disposition, and my news visibly affected her. She sat up in
bed, trembling and clinging to my arm.
‘Perhaps,’ she whispered, ‘if we lock our bedroom doors and keep very
quiet, they will go away without coming near us.’
‘Why, you goose, it’s not us they have come after, but Mr Shillito’s
ninety pounds,’ I answered.
‘And there’s poor mamma’s silver tea-service down-stairs; I hope they
won’t find that,’ said Bessie.
I hoped so too; but there was no judging how much Dethel had contrived
to ascertain respecting us and our affairs. I went to the corridor
window again and listened. The noise made by the men was now plainly
distinguishable. It seemed as if they were trying to file or cut their
way through some obstruction. After listening for a few moments, I went
back to my room and began almost mechanically to put on a few articles
of clothing, asking myself again and again as I did so whether it was
not possible to do something—though what that something ought to be I
knew no more than the man in the moon. The nearest house was a quarter
of a mile away; and even if I could have stolen out unnoticed by way
of the front-door, before I could have reached the farm and brought
back help, the burglars would have effected their purpose and decamped.
Our pecuniary means at that time were very straitened. For some time
back John had been paying off some old family debts; and the loss of
the ninety pounds—which, as a matter of course, he would feel bound to
make good—would be a great blow to him. If I could only have got at the
money, and have hidden it where the burglars would not be likely to
find it, I felt that I should have accomplished something. But the bag
was locked up in John’s strong mahogany desk, and was as utterly beyond
my reach as if it had been in the coffers of the Bank of England, while
yet it could hardly have been placed more conveniently ready to the
hands of the thieves. To them the strong mahogany desk would seem a
trifling obstacle indeed.
All this time, metaphorically speaking, I was wringing my hands,
knowing full well how precious were the fast-fleeting moments, but only
feeling my helplessness the more, the more I strove to discern some
loophole of escape. Oh, the wretchedness of such a feeling! I hope
never to experience it again in the same degree as I experienced it
that night.
The lightning, if not quite so vivid as it had been a little while
previously, still came in as frequent flashes, and by its light my
sister and I made a hurried toilet. Our house stood a little way back
from the high-road, from which it was divided by a tiny lawn and a low
screen of evergreens. Once or twice in the course of the night one of
the mounted constabulary would ride slowly past as he went his rounds;
but I was without any knowledge as to the particular time when he might
be expected, or whether, in fact, the time at which he might be looked
for at any specified point did not vary from night to night. Still,
there was just a possibility that he might put in an appearance at any
moment; so I stationed Bessie at the window to keep a lookout for him,
and be in readiness to raise an alarm the moment she heard the tramp of
his horse’s hoofs. For once in a way the lightning was something to be
thankful for; each flash lighted up the high-road for a considerable
distance on both sides of the house.
When this was done, it seemed as if everything possible had been done;
and yet it was next to nothing. With both hands pressed to my eyes, I
stood thinking as I seemed never to have thought before. Then it was
that—as sudden, swift, and startling as one of those flashes which
were momently illumining the outer world—an idea shot through my brain,
which for an instant or two seemed to cause my heart to stand still.
And yet at the first blush it was an idea that had about it something
so preposterous, so ludicrous, even, that had the need been at all less
imminent, I should have discarded it at once as little better than the
inspiration of a mad woman. But preposterous as the idea might seem,
for the life of me I could think of no other, and every minute now was
invaluable. There was no time for hesitation. I must discard it or
adopt it, and that without a moment’s delay. ‘I will try it; it can but
fail,’ I said to myself with an inward groan.
On the toilet-table was a jar of white tooth-powder, which had been
replenished the previous day. I shook out a quantity of this powder,
shut my eyes, and proceeded to rub it thickly over my face, arms, and
hands. That done, I drew the white coverlet off the bed, and draped
myself with it loosely from head to foot; then I unbound my hair, which
in those days was ebon black and reached below my waist, and shook it
round my face and over my shoulders in ‘most admired disorder.’ I was
now ready for the rôle I had made up my mind to enact.
Bessie has told me since that she thought I had taken leave of my
senses. Just at the moment my toilet was completed, and as I turned
and advanced towards her, another long, quivering flash lighted up the
room. A low shriek burst involuntarily from my sister’s lips, and she
shrank away from me as though I were something altogether uncanny.
‘O Barbara, dear, what is the matter?’ she cried. ‘Why do you frighten
me so?’
‘It is not you I want to frighten, but the men down-stairs,’ I replied.
Then, in a few hurried words, I told her my plan.
She would have tried to dissuade me; but there was no time to listen.
Leaving her there watching by the window, ready to raise an alarm in
case the mounted constable should pass on his round, I stole swiftly
and noiselessly down the carpeted staircase, and only paused when I
reached the corridor below. I could hear a subdued murmur of voices,
and a moment later I was startled by a noise of falling glass. The
burglars had succeeded in effecting an entrance. They and I were
separated only by the drawing-room door, which, although locked, was
an obstacle that very few minutes would suffice to overcome. With an
indrawing of my breath I sped quickly past the door along the length
of the corridor until I reached the opposite end, where there were two
more doors, one of them being that of my brother’s office, which also
was locked, and from the lock of which I now withdrew the key. I have
omitted to state that the window of John’s office was secured by two
stout bars, which was probably one reason why the thieves had chosen to
effect an entrance at a point more readily adapted for their purpose.
The second door at the end of the corridor shut off a short passage
leading to the kitchen. This door I succeeded in opening without noise.
I had decided to take my stand a little way on the inner side of it,
and there await the course of events. By this time the men were busily
at work forcing the lock of the drawing-room door. A thin thread of
light which shone from under showed that although the lightning was
still as frequent as before, they did not find it sufficient for their
purpose.
Scarcely breathing, I waited. I was too excited, too wrought up, the
tension of my nerves was too extreme, to allow of any personal fear.
It was all terribly real, yet with a strange, vague sense of unreality
underlying it. I felt as if I should not have been surprised had I woke
up and found the whole affair resolve itself into a dream; while yet
fully assured in my mind that it was nothing of the kind. Suddenly the
noise at the door ceased; the lock had been forced. The thread of light
disappeared; for a few moments all was silence the most profound. Then
a faint creaking, which at any other time would have been inaudible,
told me that the drawing-room door was being opened and that the
crucial moment had come. I pressed one hand over my heart, and for a
few brief seconds an almost overpowering longing seized me to get back
to my room at any cost and lock myself within. But it was too late; by
this time the men were in the corridor. I knew it, although I could not
see them.
‘Where’s the door we want?’ I heard one whisper to the other.
‘On the right—the first door we come to.’
As they advanced a step, I did the same.
‘What noise was that?’ asked one of them quickly.
‘Don’t be a fool. There was no noise.’
‘I tell you there was.—Where’s the glim?’
But the lightning was quicker than the bull’s-eye. It came, smiting the
darkness, and flooding the corridor with the blinding intensity of its
glare. Then I saw the men, and the men saw me, but darkness had hidden
us from each other again before they had time to make sure that their
eyes had not deceived them.
One of them gave a gasp and whispered to his mate: ‘What was that tall,
white thing at the end of the passage? Seemed to me like a ghost.’
‘Ghost be dashed! There ain’t no such things.—Here’s the glim. We’ll
soon see what it is.’ As he spoke, the light of his bull’s-eye lantern
was turned full upon me.
I advanced a couple of paces, and the men fell back in speechless
surprise and terror. I have often tried since to picture to myself the
appearance I must have presented when seen at such a moment and by that
uncertain light, with my ghastly, death-like face, my dilated eyes,
my black, snake-like locks, my tall figure all in white, and with one
extended arm and finger pointed direct at the men. I cannot wonder at
their fright.
At this juncture came another flash, and a terrible peal of thunder
startled the air and shook the house. At the very instant, impelled
thereto by something within me that I was powerless to control, I burst
into a wild peal of maniacal, blood-curdling laughter. One step nearer
I advanced; but that was enough. With a loud yell of terror, the men
turned and fled by the way they had come. I heard a crash of shattered
glass; and after that, I remember nothing more till I came to my
senses, to find Bessie supporting my head on her lap and pressing her
smelling-salts to my nose.
But John’s ninety pounds were saved, and it is hardly necessary to add
that Dethel the ex-gardener was never seen in those parts again.
SPIDER-SILK.
It may not be inopportune to recall to the minds of our readers a
somewhat neglected silk-source, which may perhaps at some future
period form a profitable commercial undertaking. It is unnecessary to
expatiate upon the beauty of the gossamer spun by the _Aranea diadema_,
or common Garden spider, as the fairy-like tracery must be familiar to
every one who has wandered through the woods in autumn, when the gauzy
films festooned between and over the bushes were rendered prominent
through saturation with dew or a sprinkling of hoar-frost. The thread
produced by this little creature is estimated to be many times finer
than the most attenuated filament of the well-known silkworm of Europe,
the _Bombyx mori_; consequently, as may be imagined, the difficulty
of obtaining such silk is so great that, except for land-surveying
purposes, the web of spiders as a class has not been permanently
utilised. For the latter object, the plan adopted by our surveying
instrument makers[1] in order to secure small supplies of spider’s
line, is remarkably simple, and affords an illustration of how
closely instinct in the lower creation sometimes approaches reasoning
intelligence in the higher. Having caught the selected spider, it is
immediately tossed backwards and forwards from hand to hand of the
operator, until the impulse of self-preservation induces the emission
of its thread. Meanwhile, a wire, bent double like a hairpin—the
distance between the prongs being slightly greater than the diameter of
the telescope to be fitted—is at hand to receive the silk. As soon as
the filament appears, the end is attached to the wire and the spider
dropped, when it immediately emits its thread with great rapidity, in
the hope of reaching the ground and escaping. This is frustrated by
a dexterous revolution of the extemporised reel, which winds up the
line as fast as it is produced, until the spider’s store of silk is
exhausted. It is then allowed its liberty; and a touch of gum on each
prong secures the silk in convenient lengths for future use.
Rather more than fifty years ago, it seemed as if a new and important
trade was about to be inaugurated by the rearing of spiders for their
silk, which the Society of Arts marked with their approval by awarding
a medal to a Mr Rolt for his success in obtaining an appreciable
quantity from the Garden spider. This gentleman accomplished his
purpose by connecting a reel with a steam-engine, setting it revolving
at the rate of one hundred and fifty feet per minute; when, after two
hours’ patience, he wound off eighteen thousand feet of beautiful
white line of a metallic lustre from twenty-four spiders. Subsequent
examination proved this thread to be only the thirty-thousandth part of
an inch in diameter, so that a single pound-weight was estimated to be
sufficient to encircle the globe. Although this gentleman appears not
to have pushed his interesting experiments much further, a Frenchman of
Languedoc afterwards established a factory for producing and weaving
spider-silk into articles of utility. He manufactured gloves and
stockings which were much admired; but the difficulty of rearing a
sufficiently numerous family of spinners within a reasonable space, on
account of their extreme pugnacity, soon interfered with this budding
industry, and led to its abandonment. No difficulty was experienced
by M. Reaumur in collecting some five thousand spiders and immuring
them in fifty separate cells; but unfortunately, on one occasion there
occurred a scarcity of flies; a food-panic ensued, and the hungry
and infuriated prisoners, escaping during the night, fell upon one
another with such deadly ferocity, that when the anxious proprietor
paid his usual morning visit, only a few gorged and bloated specimens
survived. It seemed, indeed, so vain to expect European spiders to
exist peacefully within sight and reach of each other without their
usual employment conducted after their own fashion, that the hope of
rendering them useful for commercial purposes gradually died away, and
has for many years been almost wholly relinquished.
Certain species of foreign spiders, however, when examined with a view
to their silk, offer a field of very considerable encouragement. In the
island of Ceylon there is one described by Sir Samuel Baker as being
two inches long, with a large yellow spot upon its back, which spins a
beautiful yellow web two and a half feet in diameter, so strong that an
ordinary walking-stick thrown in is entangled, and retained among the
meshes. As might be expected, the filament, which is said to exhibit a
more silky appearance than common spider’s web, is easily wound by hand
on a card, without any special care being exercised in the operation.
A spider of even more formidable dimensions is alluded to in the
fascinating work, _The Gardens of the Sun_, by Mr F. W. Burbidge. It is
a large, black, yellow-spotted creature, measuring six or eight inches
across its extended legs, and it spins a web strained on lines as stout
as fine sewing-cotton.