In one of the dirtiest of the dirty and disreputable dens of London, a man and a boy sat on that same dark December night engaged in earnest conversation.
Their seats were stools, their table was an empty flour-barrel, their apartment a cellar. A farthing candle stood awry in the neck of a pint bottle. A broken-lipped jug of gin-and-water hot, and two cracked tea-cups stood between them. The damp of the place was drawn out, rather than abated, by a small fire, which burned in a rusty grate, over which they sought to warm their hands as they conversed. The man was palpably a scoundrel. Not less so was the boy.
“Slogger,” said the man, in a growling voice, “we must do it this wery night.”
“Vell, Brassey, I’m game,” replied the Slogger, draining his cup with a defiant air.
“If it hadn’t bin for that old ’ooman as was care-taker all last summer,” continued the man, as he pricked a refractory tobacco-pipe, “we’d ’ave found the job more difficult; but, you see, she went and lost the key o’ the back door, and the doctor he ’ad to get another. So I goes an’ gets round the old ’ooman, an’ pumps her about the lost key, an’ at last I finds it—d’ye see?”
“But,” returned the Slogger, with a knowing frown, “seems to me as how you’d never get two keys into one lock—eh? The noo ’un wouldn’t let the old ’un in, would it?”
“Ah, that’s where it is,” replied Mr Brassey, with a leer, as he raised his cup to his large ugly mouth and chuckled. “You see, the doctor’s wife she’s summat timmersome, an’ looks arter the lockin’ up every night herself—wery partikler. Then she ’as all the keys up into her own bedroom o’ nights—so, you see, in consikence of her uncommon care, she keeps all the locks clear for you and me to work upon!”
The Slogger was so overcome by this instance of the result of excessive caution, that he laughed heartily for some minutes, and had to apply for relief to the hot gin-and-water.
“’Ow ever did you come for to find that hout?” asked the boy.
“Servants,” replied the man.
“Ha!” exclaimed the boy, with a wink, which would have been knowing if the spirits had not by that time rendered it ridiculous.
“Yes, you see,” continued the elder ruffian, blowing a heavy cloud of smoke like a cannon shot from his lips, “servants is wariable in character. Some is good, an’ some is bad. I mostly take up wi’ the bad ’uns. There’s one in the doctor’s ’ouse as is a prime favourite with me, an’ knows all about the locks, she does. But there’s a noo an’ unexpected difficulty sprung up in the way this wery mornin’.”
“Wot’s that?” demanded the Slogger, with the air of a man prepared to defy all difficulties.
“They’ve bin an’ got a dog—a little dog, too; the very wust kind for kickin’ up a row. ’Owever, it ain’t the fust time you an’ I ’ave met an conkered such a difficulty. You’ll take a bit of cat’s meat in your pocket, you know.”
“Hall right!” exclaimed the young housebreaker, with a reckless toss of his shaggy head, as he laid his hand on the jug: but the elder scoundrel laid his stronger hand upon it.
“Come, Slogger; no more o’ that. You’ve ’ad too much already. You won’t be fit for dooty if you take more.”
“It’s wery ’ard on a cove,” growled the lad, sulkily.
Brassey looked narrowly into his face, then took up the forbidden jug, and himself drained it, after which he rose, grasped the boy by his collar, and forced him, struggling, towards a sink full of dirty water, into which he thrust his head, and shook it about roughly for a second or two.
“There, that’ll sober you,” said the man, releasing the boy, and sending him into the middle of the room with a kick. “Now, don’t let your monkey rise, Slogger. It’s all for your good. I’ll be back in ’alf an hour. See that you have the tools ready.”
So saying the man left the cellar, and the boy, who was much exasperated, though decidedly sobered, by his treatment, proceeded to dry himself with a jack-towel, and make preparations for the intended burglary.
The house in regard to which such interesting preparations were being made was buried, at the hour I write of, in profound repose. As its fate and its family have something to do with my tale, I shall describe it somewhat particularly. In the basement there was an offshoot, or scullery, which communicated with the kitchen. This scullery had been set apart that day as the bedroom of my little dog. (Of course I knew nothing of this, and what I am about to relate, at that time. I learned it all afterwards.) Dumps lay sound asleep on a flannel bed, made by loving hands, in the bottom of a soap-box. It lay under the shadow of a beer-cask—the servants’ beer—a fresh cask—which, having arrived late that evening, had not been relegated to the cellar. The only other individual who slept on the basement was the footman.
That worthy, being elderly and feeble, though bold as a lion, had been doomed to the lower regions by his mistress, as a sure protection against burglars. He went to bed nightly with a poker and a pistol so disposed that he could clutch them both while in the act of springing from bed. This arrangement was made not to relieve his own fears, but by order of his mistress, with whom he could hold communication at night without rising, by means of a speaking-tube.
John—he chanced to bear my own name—had been so long subject to night alarms, partly from cats careering in the back yard, and his mistress demanding to know, through the tube, if he heard them; partly, also, from frequent ringing of the night-bell, by persons who urgently wanted “Dr McTougall,” that he had become callous in his nervous system, and did much of his night-work as a semi-somnambulist.
The rooms on the first floor above, consisting of the dining-room, library, and consulting-room, etcetera, were left, as usual, tenantless and dark at night. On the drawing-room floor Mrs McTougall lay in her comfortable bed, sound asleep and dreamless. The poor lady had spent the first part of that night in considerable fear because of the restlessness of Dumps in his new and strange bedroom—her husband being absent because of a sudden call to a country patient. The speaking-tube had been pretty well worked, and John had been lively in consequence—though patient—but at last the drowsy god had calmed the good lady into a state of oblivion.
On the floor above, besides various bedrooms, there were the night nursery and the schoolroom. In one of the bedrooms slumbered the young lady who had robbed me of my doggie!
In the nursery were four cribs and a cradle. Dr McTougall’s family had come in what I may style annual progression. Six years had he been married, and each year had contributed another annual to the army.
The children were now ranged round the walls with mathematical precision—one, two, three, four, and five. The doctor liked them all to be together, and the nursery, being unusually large, permitted of this arrangement. A tall, powerful, sunny-tempered woman of uncertain age officered the army by day and guarded it by night. Jack and Harry and Job and Jenny occupied the cribs, Dolly the cradle. Each of these creatures had been transfixed by sleep in the very midst of some desperate enterprise during the earlier watches of that night, and all had fallen down in more or less dégagé and reckless attitudes. Here a fat fist, doubled; there a fatter leg, protruded; elsewhere a spread eagle was represented, with the bedclothes in a heap on its stomach; or a complex knot was displayed, made up of legs, sheets, blankets, and arms. Subsequently the tall but faithful guardian had gone round, disentangled the knot, reduced the spread eagle, and straightened them all out. They now lay, stiff and motionless as mummies, roseate as the morn, deceptively innocent, with eyes tight shut and mouths wide open—save in the case of Dolly, whose natural appetite could only be appeased by the nightly sucking of two of her own fingers.
In the attics three domestics slumbered in peace. Still higher, a belated cat reposed in the lee of a chimney-stack.
It was a restful scene, which none but a heartless monster could have ventured to disturb. Even Brassey and the Slogger had no intention of disturbing it—on the contrary, it was their earnest hope that they might accomplish their designs on the doctor’s plate with as little disturbance as possible. Their motto was a paraphrase, “Get the plate—quietly, if you can, but get the plate!”
In the midst of the universal stillness, when no sound was heard save the sighing of the night-wind or the solemn creaking of an unsuccessful smoke-curer, there came a voice of alarm down the tube—
“John, do you hear burglars?”
“Oh, dear! no, mum, I don’t.”
“I’m convinced I hear them at the back of the house!” tubed Mrs McTougall.
“Indeed it ain’t, mum,” tubed John in reply. “It’s on’y that little dog as comed this morning and ain’t got used to its noo ’ome yet. It’s a-whinin’, mum; that’s wot it is.”
“Oh! do get up, John, and put a light beside him; perhaps he’s afraid of the dark.”
“Very well, mum,” said John, obedient but savage.
He arose, upset the poker and pistol with a hideous clatter, which was luckily too remote to smite horror into the heart of Mrs McTougall, and groped his way into the servants’ hall. Lighting a paraffin lamp, he went to the scullery, using very unfair and harsh language towards my innocent dog.
“Pompey, you brute!”—the footman had already learned his name—“hold your noise. There!”
He set the lamp on the head of the beer cask and returned to bed.
It is believed that poor perplexed Dumps viewed the midnight apparition with silent surprise, and wagged his tail, being friendly; then gazed at the lamp after the apparition had retired, until obliged to give the subject up, like a difficult conundrum, and finally went to sleep—perchance to dream—of dogs, or me!
It was while Dumps was thus engaged that Brassey and the Slogger walked up to the front of the house and surveyed it in silence for a few minutes. They also took particular observations of both ends of the street.
“All serene,” said Brassey; “now, you go round to the back and use your key quietly. Give ’im the bit o’ meat quick. He won’t give tongue arter ’e smells it, and one or two barks won’t alarm the ’ouse. So, get along, Slogger. W’en you’ve got him snug, with a rope round ’is neck an’ ’is head in the flannel bag, just caterwaul an’ I’ll come round. Bless the cats! they’re a great help to gentlemen in our procession.”
Thus admonished, the Slogger chuckled and melted into the darkness, while Brassey mingled himself with the shadow of a pillar.
The key—lost by the care-taker and found by the burglar—fitted into the empty lock even more perfectly than that which Mrs McTougall had conveyed to her mantelpiece some hours before. It was well oiled too, and went round in the wards of the lock without giving a chirp, so that the bolt flew back with one solitary shot. The report, however, was loud. It caused Dumps to return from Dogland and raise his head with a decided growl.
Nobody heard the growl except the Slogger, who stood perfectly still for nearly a minute, with his hand on the door-handle. Then he opened the door slowly and softly—so slowly and softly that an alarm-bell attached to it did not ring.
A sharp bow! wow! wow! however, greeted him as he entered, but he was prompt. A small piece of meat fell directly under the nose of Dumps, as he stood bristling in front of his box; and, let me add, when Dumps bristled it was a sight to behold!
“Good dog—good do–o–og,” said the Slogger, in his softest and most insinuating tone.
Dumps reduced his bark to a growl.
The footman heard both bark and growl, but, attributing them to the influence of cats, turned on his other side and listened—not for burglars, innocent man, but for the tube.
It was silent! Evidently “tired nature” was, in Mrs McTougall’s case, lulled by the “sweet restorer.” Forthwith John betook himself again to the land of Nod.
“Have another bit?” said the Slogger in quite a friendly way, after the first bit had been devoured.
My too trusting favourite wagged his tail and innocently accepted the bribe.
It was good cat’s meat. Dumps liked it. The enormous supper with which he had lain down was by that time nearly assimilated, and appetite had begun to revive. Going down on his knee the young burglar held out a third morsel of temptation in his hand. Dumps meekly advanced and took the meat. It was a sad illustration of the ease with which even a dog descends from bad to worse.
While he was engaged with it the Slogger gently patted his head.
Suddenly Dumps found his muzzle grasped and held tight in a powerful hand. He tried to bark and yell, but could produce nothing better than a scarcely audible whine. His sides were at the same instant grasped by a pair of powerful knees, while a rope was twisted round his neck, and the process of strangulation began.
But strangulation was not the Slogger’s intention. He had been carefully warned not to kill.
“Mind, now, you don’t screw ’im up too tight,” Brassey had said, when giving the boy his instructions before starting. “Dogs is vurth munny. Just ’old ’im tight and quiet till you get the flannel bag on ’is head, and then stand by till I’ve sacked the swag.”
Accordingly, having effected the bagging of the dog’s head, the young burglar went to the door, holding Dumps tight in his arms, and uttered a pretty loud and life-like caterwaul. Brassey heard it, emerged from the shade of his pillar, and was soon beside his comrade.
When Dumps smelt and heard the new-comer, he redoubled his efforts to free his head and yell, but the Slogger was too much for him.
Few words were wasted on this occasion. The couple understood their work. Brassey took up the lamp.
“Wery considerate of ’em to ’ave a light all ready for us,” he muttered, as he lowered the flame a little, and glided into the kitchen, leaving the Slogger on guard in the scullery. Here he found a variety of gins and snares carefully placed for him—and such as he—by strict orders of Mrs McTougall. Besides a swing-bell on the window shutter—similar to that which had done so little service on the scullery door—there was a coal-scuttle with the kitchen tongs balanced against it and a tin slop-pail in company with the kitchen shovel, and a watering-pan, which—the poker being already engaged to John—was balanced on its own rose and handle, all ready to fail with a touch. These outworks being echelloned along the floor rendered it impossible for an intruder to cross the kitchen in the dark without overturning one or more of them. Thanks to the lamp, Brassey steered his way carefully and with a grim smile.
At John Waters’s door he paused and listened. John’s nose revealed his condition.
Gliding up the stairs on shoeless feet the burglar entered the dining-room, picked the locks of the sideboard with marvellous celerity, unfolded a canvas bag, and placed therein whatever valuables he could lay hands on. Proceeding next to the drawing-room floor, he began to examine and appropriate the articles of vertu that appeared to him most valuable.
Not being a perfect judge of such matters, Mr Brassey was naturally puzzled with some of them. One in particular caused him to regard it with frowning attention for nearly a minute before he came to the conclusion that it was “vurth munny.” He placed the lamp on the small table near the window, from which he had lifted the ornament in question, and sat down on a crimson chair with gilded legs to examine it more critically.
Meanwhile the Slogger, left in the dark with the still fitfully struggling Dumps, employed his leisure in running over some of the salient events of his past career, and in trying to ascertain, by the very faint light that came from a distant street-lamp, what was the nature of his immediate surroundings. His nose told him that the cask at his elbow was beer. His exploring right hand told him that the tap was in it. His native intelligence suggested a tumbler on the head of the cask, and the exploring hand proved the idea to be correct.
“Brassey was wery ’ard on me to-night,” he thought. “I’d like to have a swig.”
But Dumps was sadly in the way. To remove his left hand even for an instant from the dog’s muzzle was not to be thought of. In this dilemma he resolved to tie up the said muzzle, and the legs also, even at the risk of causing death. It would not take more than a minute to draw a tumblerful, and any dog worth a straw could hold his wind for a minute. He would try. He did try, and was yet in the act of drawing the beer when my doggie burst his bonds by a frantic effort to be free. Probably the hairy nature of his little body had rendered a firm bond impossible. At all events, he suddenly found his legs loose. Another effort, more frantic than before, set free the muzzle, and then there arose on the still night air a yell so shrill, so loud, so indescribably horrible, that its conception must be left entirely to the reader’s imagination.
At the same instant Dumps scurried into the kitchen. The scuttle and tongs went down, the slop-pail and shovel followed suit, also the watering-pan, into which latter Dumps went head foremost as it fell, and from its interior another yell issued with such resonant power that the first yell was a mere chirp by contrast. The Slogger fled from the scene like an evil spirit, while John Waters sprang up and grasped the pistol and poker.
The effect on Brassey in the drawing-room cannot be conceived, much less described. He shot, as it were, out of the crimson-gilded chair and overturned the lamp, which burst on the floor. Being half full of paraffin oil it instantly set fire to the gauze window-curtains. The burglar made straight for the stairs. John Waters, observing the light, dashed up the same, and the two met face to face on the landing, breathing hate and glaring defiance!
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