Part 8

When questioned as to his intentions for the future, and especially after rejoining his mother, he coolly said that he supposed he should take to her trade. It was this callous idea that Jerry set himself to undermine, and admirably the old man succeeded, thus affixing a brighter gem to his brow for all eternity than if he had gone as a missionary to the heathen and converted a whole troop of savages. Dickie first listened in respectful patience to the new doctrines of honesty and hard work, then began to imbibe them and manfully adopt them himself, and finally became as firm and resolute in their dissemination as Jerry himself. Out of this sprang a strange act. Dickie had once written to his mother describing his new life, and promising to rejoin her on her liberation; he now wrote a final letter, asserting his intention of separating himself for ever from her and her influence, and declaring his intention of growing up “on the square.” Jess was nearly insane over the news—not that she cared whether he grew up honest or a thief—but that he should think of separating his life entirely from her own. Three months elapsed before she was able to reply to his letter, and by that time Dickie was hundreds of miles away, leaving no address, and the letter was returned to the Penitentiary, marked “_Not Found_.” Jerry was an Irishman, and though he always earned less money in his own country than in Scotland or England, he inclined more to wander at that side of the Channel, where, if the people could give nothing else, they were always ready with a kindly greeting or a sympathetic answer, and, of course, Dickie accompanied him, and gradually acquired such a strong smack of the Irish brogue that he would have passed for one of themselves.

When the queer partnership had first been formed, Dickie did little but go round the houses at which they paused and ask for knives or scissors to grind, but gradually, as he grew stronger and mastered the intricacies of the grinding as taught by old Jerry, the position of the partners became inverted, Dickie taking the heavy part of the work and Jerry the light. A strong affection had sprung up between them, and Dickie never thought he could do too much for the feeble old man, whose bad leg at times held them in a poor locality till they were literally starved out of it. During these detentions, Dickie, not at all dismayed, sturdily faced the road alone, sometimes making a round of thirty miles in a day, and faithfully returning with the grinding machine and his earnings at night. In this way he had “eaten the district bare,” as he said, while Jerry’s leg showed no sign of mending or allowing him to move.

“Ye’ll have to take another county, Dickie, darlint,” he said, after they had discussed the matter, and found some action imperative. “I’m not afeard of ye running away an’ forgetting your poor owld grandfather. I’ve teached ye better nor that, more by token they can never expect to prosper that wrongs the helpless or the suffering.”

“May I drop dead the minute such a thought enters my head!” said Dickie with energy. “Rest where you are, Jerry dear—and get well and take all the comfort ye can, for sure ye’ve been a blessed friend to me, and made a man of me when I’d have turned out nothing but a jail bird and a vagabone.”

The “man,” as he termed himself, was then just twelve years of age, but his sentiments, as the reader will admit, were worthy of twice that number of years.

Thus it was that Dickie came to face the world as an independent traveller. He moved over a great part of Ireland in this way, always sending the net gains regularly to old Jerry, and, on the whole, doing nearly as well as before the separation. He almost invariably met with kindness and sympathy, but once he was attacked and robbed of three days’ earnings. But in taking the money the wretches took also Dickie’s carefully cherished talisman, the broken cairngorm, and by that they were identified and convicted, while the trinket was returned to Dickie, who cherished it and guarded it, with greater faith than ever in its power. He would not have parted with that senseless bit of stone for a twenty-pound note, for it was the only link which connected the present with the past, and he never looked at it, as he was wont to declare, without remembering what he might have been but for old Jerry.

“Faith, I believe if I were to lose that stone my good luck would go with it,” he repeatedly asserted, from which it will be seen that there was mixed up with Dickie’s well-doing a spice of superstition, which, however, is not a bad thing, when it keeps in the straight path feet inclined to wander.

On one of the rare occasions when Dickie was able to get back as far as Belfast to see Jerry, he found the old grinder unusually weak and worn. Hitherto Jerry had doctored his leg himself, but now it had assumed such a strange appearance that he was glad to have Dickie by his side to advise him. It had begun to grow black, and, what was more strange, the pain had all gone out of it. Dickie had been doing pretty well on his travels, so he promptly decided that they should call in a doctor.

When that gentleman came he looked at the leg, and then at the emaciated face of the old man, and then said compassionately—

“Why did you send for me?”

“To mend me leg, plase God,” said Jerry.

The doctor quietly covered up the limb and shook his head.

“Ye’ve more need of a praist, good man,” he said, shortly, but not unkindly. “No doctor alive will ever make you well.”

Dickie felt his heart suddenly grow cold and empty within him; then a revulsion came and he burst into tears. Jerry alone was calm, and even radiant.

“I’ve been expecting the message,” he quietly returned. “Plase the Lord, I’m ready to die. Dickie, avourneen, don’t sob the heart out ov ye like that. Sure, it’s rejoicing ye ought to be that I’m getting rid of all my troubles and pains at wanst; and, blessed be God, it’s aisy dyin’ when love smooths the pillow. Ye’ve been a true son to me, and my own heart’s blood couldn’t have been affectionater. Pay the gintleman for his trouble, Dickie, aroon, and then run for a praist, for I feel the blackness creeping up on me, and when it covers my heart I’ll be in heaven. The Lord is always good; He’s kept me alive till you got back, Dickie, to take my hand an’ help me over the dark stile.”

The doctor would accept of no fee, and Dickie ran off and got a priest, who came and went, leaving Jerry happy and peaceful, with one arm round Dickie’s neck and the other clasping his hand. He had a great deal to tell his young partner, but the most important of all was a strong injunction that he should continue honest and industrious.

“There’s some money in the owld snuff-box under my head,” he continued. “I’ve tuck care of it for ye, for ye’ve earned the most of it, and deserved it all. You’ll get all that, and give me a dacent funeral, and keep the rest. It’ll maybe start ye in a better way of doing some day, but if the other way isn’t the straight way, ye’d better pitch the money into the salt say and go on as ye are.”

The next morning the blackness crept up on Jerry’s tender heart, and Dickie, still clasping the old man’s hand and wetting it with his tears, helped him over the dark stile, and stood alone in the world.

The courage had nearly gone out of Dickie under this blow, but youth is buoyant, hopeful, and active. After laying the head of Jerry in the grave, and paying every one, Dickie found that he had nearly £20 left, all in gold sovereigns, for Jerry had imbibed the national distrust of bank notes. Dickie left the money in safe keeping, and started once more with his grinding machine. It was only when going over his old rounds that he discovered how much Jerry had been beloved and respected—truly another testimony that “honour and shame from no condition rise.” Every one had a good word for his memory, and many a tear was shed as Dickie described his peaceful and courageous end. After another year of this wandering in Ireland, Dickie crossed to Liverpool, and spent a year in England, at the end of which time he sold his grinding machine, and became a hawker of cheap jewellery.

He was now a smart-tongued lad of fifteen, nicely dressed, with a good stock, all bought with Jerry’s careful savings, and found the new line much more congenial, and quite as profitable as the old. Much of the Irish accent dropped from his tongue, and at length it would have puzzled even an expert to decide his nationality by his speech. As he increased in experience and accumulated capital, he was enabled to deal in a finer class of jewellery, which he carried about in a mahogany box having several lifting trays and compartments, and having on the side a stout leather handle, and on the top a brass plate bearing the words—

“RICHARD MURRAY, Licensed Hawker.”

Till he was seventeen he never thought of coming near Scotland, and had long since forgotten his mother’s features, and given up any idea of seeking her out, or joining his fortunes with her own; but some one then fired his mind with a glowing account of what could be done in his line in some of the towns, and Dickie crossed the Border and worked his way to Glasgow, in which city he succeeded well. Saturday afternoon and night were his best times for business, as then the working folks were all free and plentiful of money.

After one of these successful days he had wandered into a big, flashy public-house, close to one of the theatres, for a last effort before going home to his humble lodging. The place was crowded, bar and boxes, for the theatre had just disgorged its contents, and it was near closing time. Dickie sold some of his wares, and then found himself in one of the boxes offering a silver brooch, set with imitation diamonds, to a company of three there seated—two men and a big muscular woman, with some traces of beauty still about her face.

The woman fancied the brooch, and appeared resolved on buying it, but among them they could not muster the price of the trinket, and as Dickie would not abate to their price, the brooch was reluctantly handed back and shut up in his box. The moment he had gone a significant look ran round the three.

“It would be easily done, and he’s quite a boy,” said Jess Murray eagerly. “He won’t give it for a fair price; if you’ve any spirit at all, you’ll take the boxful.”

One of the men, Bob Lynch by name, was indifferent whether they adopted the suggestion or not, and rose carelessly to follow the lad; the other, known as “Jockey” Savage, thought that the boy, as Jess called him, was not such a stripling, and might give them more trouble than they bargained for. They all agreed, however, that it was worth while following him, and, if a suitable spot were found, making the attempt. They left the public house and separated, one man going on either side of the street, and Jess following some distance behind, to assist in any emergency. Dickie’s lodging was in a narrow close off the Gallowgate, and they had to follow him thus far before any opportunity occurred for attacking him, as, though he did no business on the way, he kept persistently to the main thoroughfare, thronged with passengers. The moment he entered the close the men exchanged signals and dived in after him. Dickie had scarcely walked twenty yards when a garrotting arm was thrown round his neck, and a snatch made at the box in his hand. But Dickie had not knocked about the world so long without learning something. He held on to the leather strap of his box with all his strength, and at the same time delivered a backward kick at Jockey Savage’s shin bone, which made him slacken his grip, and squirm and howl with agony. As the intended victim made a great outcry at the same moment Bob Lynch made a desperate effort to bring out a leaden-headed life-preserver, but then Dickie, divining what the motion meant, grasped at the villain’s arm with his disengaged hand while he tried to pin the other to Lynch’s side with his teeth. Just then there was a swift rush to the spot, and Jess Murray, snatching the “neddy” from Lynch’s pocket, brought it down with a crashing swing on the fair brow of the lad. Dickie dropped like a log, and Jess caught the box as it fell from his hand, tossing the neddy back to its owner, and saying—

“You bunglers would take all night to it. Now bolt! I’ll take care of the swag.”

They vanished from the spot like magic, and by different routes gained a den further east, known to them all, and peculiarly handy in their present condition, as it was kept by a man who would reset anything—the Great Eastern, even, if anyone chose to steal it. Jess was the last to arrive, with the box hidden under her shawl, and she tossed it down on the table with much pride and satisfaction.

“You hit him twice, Jess,” observed Lynch, who was a bit of a coward, and was now very pale and concerned. “I hope to goodness you haven’t croaked him.”

“His own fault if I have,” coolly answered Jess. “Turn out the box and see what we’ve got, and then into the fire with it before the spots come.”

The order was speedily obeyed. The stock was of greater value than they had anticipated, but in addition, in the bottom compartment of the box, they found five or six pounds in money, and a bank-book representing a good deal more.

“What a pity! what a pity!” cried Jockey reflectively; “banks are a nuisance—if the money had only been here instead of the book!”

“What’s that in the tissue paper?” said Jess eagerly—“a pile of sovereigns, very like. Turn them out—the greedy beggar was as rich as a Jew.”

Jockey obeyed, and gave a whistle of disappointment. All that the tissue paper contained was a broken cairngorm stone, with a bit of dirty twine drawn through a hole at one end.

“There’s your pile of gold,” he said, tossing Dickie’s talisman over to Jess. “I hope you like it.”

Jess lifted the trinket and stared at it with her face slowly becoming ghastly, and her heart freezing within her.

“I’ve seen that before!” she slowly whispered, as the men stared at her in awe-stricken wonder and silence. “It was his when he was taken from me. Perhaps it is a mistake—perhaps I have not killed my own bairn. Read! read! you that can read—read what is on that brass plate on the lid of the box.”

Jockey glanced at the plate, and sprang to his feet in horror.

“God alive! it’s there,” was all he could articulate.

“What? what? tell me what?” moaned Jess, beginning to clutch at her breast with her hands, and to writhe about like one grown mad.

“RICHARD MURRAY, Licensed Hawker,”

was the awe-stricken response, and only the half of it was heard. Shriek upon shriek went pealing through that rookery. Nothing could check her outcry; she screamed at every one; tore at them like a tiger; denounced them with every gasp and mad exclamation, and finally drew to the spot the police by struggling to throw her two accomplices out at the window. They were all marched off to the Central—with the reset as a make-weight, and Jess was there put in a padded cell and watched the long night through, or she would never have seen the light of another day. The first thing that helped to soothe her was the news that Dickie was not killed, and though there was concussion of the brain, he was likely to recover. When he did recover he was allowed to visit her in prison, and put his arms through the bars and clasp her close and hear her say that she was done for ever with a life of crime.

Jess and her companions were tried shortly after, when she, on account of the peculiar circumstances of the case, and the tearful appeal to the jury by the chief witness—Dickie—got the mild sentence of two years’ imprisonment. Jockey and Lynch got ten each, as by a fiction of the law Jess was supposed to have acted under their influence.

When Jess was released, Dickie waited for her, and they vanished together.

THE ROMANCE OF A REAL CREMONA.

A grand ball was being given one night in November at the mansion of the Earl of ———, a great castellated place a good bit within a hundred miles of this city. The dancing room was a perfect picture—the floor polished mahogany in mosaic work, the walls panelled in white flowered satin, with gold slips at the edges, and the whole lighted by hundreds of wax candles inserted in brackets and chandeliers of cut crystal, glittering with pendants, while flashing in the head-dresses and on the necks and bosoms of the fair guests were enough diamonds and other precious stones to have bought up the Regalia twice over.

It was in this scene of brightness and grandeur, and strictly exclusive gaiety, that the curious robbery which was to cause me so much trouble and concern took place.

In an assemblage of this kind, one would expect a thief, if he managed to get into the place at all, to turn his attention to the guests and their jewels; but such was not the case, and it was there that the first puzzling element came into the affair.

At one end of the room, partly in a large recess formed by one of the bow windows, and partly in a portion of the room screened off by a rope covered with red cloth, was a raised kind of a dais for the orchestra. This corner was at the end nearest the door, and clustered within the rope, with stands and music complete, was an orchestra of local musicians, under the leadership, for that night only, of a more distinguished player from England. This gentleman, whom I may name Mr Cleffton, had been engaged at some high-class concerts in Edinburgh, and was about to return to England when he was asked as a great favour and at a high fee to play at this distinguished gathering. To play at a dancing party was rather out of this gentleman’s line—to accept a high fee was not, so he went—much to his grief as he soon found.

About midnight, when the room was beginning to become uncomfortably warm, the guests filed out grandly to a supper room close by, and shortly after the musicians were similarly entertained in a smaller room, to which they were led through a long range of carpeted lobbies by the butler himself. Most of the players left their instruments on the seat they had occupied or on the music stand or floor—Mr Cleffton alone took the trouble to return his to its case. He was about to shut and lock this for additional security when he chanced to notice that all the others were waiting on him, and said hurriedly to the butler—

“I suppose the violins will be perfectly safe here? No one will meddle them while we’re out?”

The butler smiled lightly at his concern, and said emphatically—

“Not a soul will go near them.”

So the fiddle case was left open and unlocked, and its owner went away with his companions to regale himself upon cold fowl and tongue and champagne, or whatever wine he fancied most.

Now, when I say that Mr Cleffton fairly worshipped his own instrument, I am, I believe, giving only an ordinary case—all fiddlers, I understand, do that, and the more wretched the instrument the more devout is their homage. Whether this particular fiddle merited the slavish devotion I cannot say. It was very ugly, and rather dirty-looking; but its owner, besides never tiring of admiring it from every possible point of view, had given £40 for it, and afterwards spent a good many more, as I shall presently show, in trying to establish at law that the fiddle he had bought belonged to him; so I suppose it must have had good qualities of some kind.

When, therefore, the orchestra had finished supper and strolled back under the guidance of one of the servants to the ball-room, Mr Cleffton’s first look was towards his fiddle—or rather towards the case in which he had so tenderly deposited it before leaving the room. Then he started, and blinked sharply to make sure that the champagne had not affected his vision. The case was there, as was also a beautifully quilted bag of wadding and green silk in which he was wont to tenderly wrap the fiddle when done playing, and before inserting it in the case; the fiddle bow, too, was there, but the Cremona was gone.

“Hullo! what’s this!” exclaimed Mr Cleffton, in his quick, sharp way, and trying to smile in spite of his concern and pitiable pallor. “Which of you has been meddling with my fiddle.”

Nobody had been touching it, as they all hastened to assure him, reminding him at the same time how he had been the last to leave the room; and then, with concerned looks and widely opened eyes, they looked everywhere about the recess for the missing fiddle, narrowly inspecting every one of the instruments left; but it was all in vain—the fiddle had vanished.

“My beautiful _Strad!_ my beautiful _Strad!_ worth £400!” was all Mr Cleffton could moan out, as, wringing his hands, tearing at the few hairs left in his head, and almost shedding real tears of grief, he trotted feverishly and excitedly round the ball-room, peering into every corner in search of his treasure.

“Perhaps some of the servants may have taken it out to have a scrape while we were at supper,” suggested another player, keeping his own instrument tight under his arm so that there might be no danger of a second tragedy. All the other fiddlers echoed the suggestion, and, carrying their instruments under their arms, followed the distracted leader through the lobbies in search of the butler, or any of the servants likely to throw light on the strange disappearance.

The butler was soon found, and brought out from the supper room proper to hear the story of the Cremona; and in amazement and incredulity he followed the players to the ball-room, where, however, he could only stare and count over the instruments left, with the invariable result of finding them one short. Then the servants were questioned closely and searchingly, but not one of them had thought of looking at the fiddles, far less of taking one out of the room to try it, and the end of the investigation found them exactly where they had begun—that is, staring blankly at each other and saying, “Well, that is strange—how on earth could it have gone?”

By and by odd couples of the guests began to drift into the ball-room, and at length Lady ——— herself, the amiable hostess, appeared, and was informed in a whisper by the butler of the unexpected difficulty.

“One of the violins taken out of the room? oh, impossible,” she incredulously echoed, with a coolness which must have stabbed Mr Cleffton like a sword of ice. “You will find it lying about somewhere when the dancing is over. Could you not play on one of the other violins, Mr Cleffton, and look for your own afterwards?”

Mr Cleffton looked at the honourable lady in pitying and profound contempt for her ignorance, and deep reproach for what to him seemed an indifference absolutely brutal. What! sit down and calmly play on another instrument while his own—to him the best in the world—might be speeding in the hands of the exultant robber to the other end of the world.

This was more than fiddler humanity could endure. High fees and even the countenance of earls were not to be despised, but they were as nothing compared with the loss of his darling instrument, and in a torrent of excited language, such as the lady was seldom favoured with hearing, the bereaved musician told her so. Not another note would he play till he got his own fiddle.

A horrible pause followed, but in the end a compromise was effected, by which all but Mr Cleffton continued to play, while he followed the butler from the room to prosecute his inquiries in the regions below.