The Four Canadian Highwaymen Part 15

'Good sir, I pray you to give me the shelter of your house for the night. Please, sir, do. Snow is driving out of the east, and the wind is bitter cold. I cannot live this night if you do not take me in; for I am ill and lame.'

'Go to blazes about your business. Be off to the poor commissioners; they'll attend to your case,' replied the old man as he looked around, bent, and crabbedly thrusting the end of his stick several times into the ground.

'But I shall die before I reach the poor commissioners,' answered the invalid in the same soft, sad voice.

'Then die, and be d--d to you for a tramp,' the old man said, poking his stick once more into the ground and resuming his way. But he was seized with a violent fit of coughing, and almost tumbled upon his turned up, cross old nose. When he recovered he turned round and fairly danced with rage, shaking his stick at the poor wayfarer, who stood meekly by at the gate, shivering there like a dog.

Never a move did he make as the old man with menacing stick approached him, which so incensed Snarleyow that be hastened his pace to a decrepit run. But, as perverse fate or the green-complexioned gentleman at the gate would have it, the old man tripped across a pump handle which was frozen in the ground, and fell directly, and with all his might, upon the tip of his _nez retrousse'_.

Upon the ground he lay spluttering, writhing, and giving vent to an occasional shriek till there was a hurrying of feet in the mansion; then the meek and jaded traveller moved gently away till his person was hidden in the pines. Standing against a giant bole the traveller thus soliquized:

'To please Roland I promised to be good; and I felt much good in my heart. I was goeen to find some way of deceiveen my mates; but the old Christeen was too uncharitable, and I shall pick his locks. He would not care if I was dyeen, starveen on the very snow before his eyes. Yes, I'll pick his locks; and what comes to my share I'll give to the poor.'

Now which of these two men, that robber or the respectable old miser Christian, finds more favour in G.o.d's sight, think my readers?

Well, The Lifter decided to rob him, and I am glad that he did. I am not dealing with a case in the moon either. I know this old man well; and I am acquainted with some others of his kind.

About an hour after the soliloquy above recorded had taken place a weak set of knuckles rapped upon the back door of the miser's dwelling. The fairies had put, in crystal Chinese white, many ferns and much delicate but tangled tracery upon the panes of the kitchen, yet through them the flaxen-headed stranger saw a round face, and a pair of bright blue eyes. The door was then opened and the head asked:

'Who are you?'

'A poor wretch, tired, ill, lame and hungry. If you will but let me go into the kitchen a rug will serve me for the night.'

'You're the same one, bad luck to you, that so irrithated the masther?'

'I merely asked him for shelter. I said nothing else,' replied the Lifter, in his very softest and, meekest tone. 'I am a poor Catholic boy, and the Protestants about here have no mercy on us.'

He had guessed Bridget's religion from her tone.

'Divil a bit of me blaives you're a Catholic. Not one.'

'In the name of the Father, and of the Son, etc.,' said the Lifter, piously crossing himself. 'And I can give it to you as the priest does in the morneen at the ma.s.s, _"In nomine Patris, et Filio et Spiritu Sancti!"_' again crossing himself. 'And I have been at confesheen, and said this,' striking his breast, "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."'

'O begorra, you're one right enough, G.o.d bless you; come in out o'

the cowld, you poor cratur.' Now the truth is that The Lifter was not a Roman Catholic, but he made himself acquainted with a little of everything to serve him in his diabolical profession.

Poor Bridget tended him as she would a weakly infant, and made many enquiries touching his friends, pursuits, etc., all of which he answered promptly, in his smooth, insinuating voice. Indeed, before he was in Bridget's company an hour he hobbled over and kissed her, whereupon she blushed, put up her ap.r.o.n, and said that he was 'revivin' purty fast since he got into the hait ov the fire.'

'My, but your poor knee must be very sore,' she said, looking at the huge swathing that enveloped that part of his body. 'What's the matter wid it? An evil?'

'Ah, yes, Bridget; a runneen sore. My life has been ebbeen through that hole since I was a child of twelve.'

Poor Bridget looked with moistened eyes upon the smooth-faced sufferer; and he struggled to his feet again, and saluted her wholesome lips.

The reader, of course, is not imposed upon by The Lifter. Inside these ostentatious wrappings our convert carried his skeleton keys, picklocks and screw-drivers; instead of a 'runneen sore' upon the knee, he had an entire tool chest there; yea, little files with teeth so fine that the noise they made would not be nearly so loud as the gnawing of a mouse.

Wonderful stories did the converted robber tell to Bridget before the glowing fire that winter's evening; and when the last sounds of the retiring inmates had died away he was not yet ended. Neither was Bridget willing to part from such sweet and interesting company. The sleek rascal saw this, and looking slyly into Bridget's delf-blue eyes, he said,

'Only for my affliction I think I might get some girl to marry me.'

Bridget sighed and looked down upon his amber hair. Indeed, if The Lifter is to be believed, she pa.s.sed her fingers caressingly through these insinuating locks.

When the visitor was certain that everyone was asleep, he arose, and looking about him, said,

'This must be a very large house. Many rooms in it?'

'Oi; a morthal large number.'

'I have never seen the house of a rich man. Would you show me through? My eyes are acheen to see the valuable furniture and things.'

'Aisy, till they get asleep, my lammie.' He was so gentle that he suggested a lamb to her Milesian imagination. He therefore told her some new version of the banishment of frogs from the Island of Saints by St. Patrick, and expounded the trinitine mysteries of the three-leaved clover. She was delighted; and I believe that had he 'popped the question,' she would have said 'Yes, me darlint,' straightway.

Presently the two are making a tour of the lower part of the house, and The Lifter expresses his wonder at the luxury by a series of aspirated 'Oh's!'

'This is his library; that place beyant.'

'Let me see _it,'_ quoth the Lifter; and the two went silently in.

'And that little room at the far end; what's that?' said the visitor.'

'Oh, I couldn't show you that at all, at all. It's locked; bekaise he keeps all his money there.'

'Ah; he's a miser,' The Lifter said in a low voice. 'Show me where I am to sleep.'

She would put him in the attic, but he refused. The kitcheen was good enough for him, if she'd just bring him a pillow to put under his head, and a rug to throw over him.

This at last she consented to do; then stooping down she st.u.r.dily hugged his green, hypocritical head, kissed him square on the lips, and went to bed.

'Don't go till I give you some breakfast, me poor dear,' she said as the went. He _looked_ his grat.i.tude.

'I shall be waiteen when you come down--(to himself) for the capteen to divide the plunder. But I'll divide mine with the poor;' and he laid himself across the rug to listen. For an hour or better he remained there, and then set up a low but regular snore. For this cunning invader had a notion in his head that Bridget might possibly be hovering still about the lower regions. For five minutes the monotonous, low-rolling snores went up, and then there was a creaking upon the stairs. It was quite plain, and evidently near at first; but The Lifter was soon satisfied that the listener had gone to bed. He had no doubt that it was Bridget, whose honest heart perhaps misgave her after leaving the house at a stranger's mercy. But she was evidently off her guard now, and had retired in good earnest.

Upon the kitchen table stood a candle, and this, after the lapse of another half-hour, the convert took into his hand. Moving noiselessly as a cat he entered the great drawing-room, but did not yet venture to light his candle. Once into the library he breathed more freely, for light could not be seen or sound heard from this retired and distant part of the mansion. The glare from the dip was small in circ.u.mference, and yellow as tarnished bra.s.s, but it revealed plainly enough the locks of the door to the secret room. Unwinding the bandage about his leg he laid his tools upon the carpet and then began operations.

At first he introduced a long key hooked a little at the point, and with this he began to probe, and feel, and measure. A gleam came into his eyes as he drew it forth. Then he selected two keys and looking first at one and then at the other, decided, in a second or two in favour of the larger. This he inserted; and in a moment a bolt turned back with a slow, dull sound. Turning the k.n.o.b, he pushed the door, and was inside the secret chamber. This room was certainly a 'Camera obscura;' for it had no windows or any outlet save the door by which the robber had entered. In the most distant corner was a vault, the door of which was fastened by heavy clamps of steel and padlocks. But the padlocks were of the very kind with which The Lifter was most familiar; and ere a minute elapsed the heavy bolts were let down. But it took all the muscle of which the robber was master to open the ponderous door; and when it did move out, snowing the dark cavity through the yawning mouth, it gave no squeak; for the operator had deftly placed a few drops of oil within the hinges.

'_Fortuna favet trepidis_,' he said, never having heard of an accusative case.

The next moment he was kneeling before the safe and studying the difficulties that lay in his way. The combinations that so completely defy the pick-lock in these modern days were not known then; so that after five minutes' operations, the convert had the heavy metal door open.

He expected no doubt to find the coin in one great glittering heap, but he was mistaken; for the cautious miser had twelve compartments in the safe, each one of which was secured by two locks, no one of which resembled the other.

'This,' thought the prying gentleman,' reminds one of the story of the Sleepen Beauty--it was so hard to get near her. Drageens, serpents, firey horses, and terrible birds with steel bills. But here goes.'

One compartment was soon opened, and from this our friend drew a little tin box which was also locked. It was very heavy, but The Lifter had no mind to carry away possibly a bit of lead. So he opened the box, and found a ma.s.s of sovereigns, shining as if they had just come from the mint.

'All right,' he muttered, and laid them upon the floor.

At this instant, a mouse ran across the floor, and then about a dozen others, shrieking like a sharp blast of autumn wind. The Lifter rose to his feet and glanced about, and then shaded the feeble glim with his hand.