Tinderbox, to have repeated to him by the barman that which he had said to me.
On our arrival we found John at work, mowing the lawn. I apparently took little or no notice of him, but whenever I could do so furtively had a good look at his countenance, and whenever I looked, as P and myself were walking about the garden (he, P, being in plain clothes), his eye was on us, and I observed he was, in consequence of this, notching the grass. P and I had a long conversation; he hesitated very much about taking the man, he said; he was inclined to agree with me that it was very likely he was the man, but he said we have not enough, at present, to go upon. So, after a little further delay, he went up to the gardener, and said, very suddenly, “Have you heard Mr. S’s house was broken open last night?”
“God bless me!—no,” says the man. “What a terrible thing, to be sure.”
Lie number two, for John, the lad, had told him in the morning. No notice was taken of this lie by either of us, but a sort of smile now played upon the inspector’s countenance, and he proceeded to ask him:—
“Have you seen any suspicious-looking character about here lately?”
“No,” said the man, “nobody.”
“No tramping fellows, or anybody of that sort?”
“No,” he had noticed no one of the kind.
All this time the inspector kept getting a little closer to him, and in a light playful tone, said, while just tapping the outside of his waistcoat-pocket, “Lord! how your pockets stick out! Do you carry your tools in your pockets? Let’s see what you’ve got in them,” and suiting the action to the word, coolly put his hand in the man’s pocket, upon which he first of all turned deadly pale, and then began to ride the high horse, from which he had, as is about to be told, a mighty tumble.
Pocket number one brought forth some pawn-tickets, and some lucifer-matches, and other articles of trifling import. Pocket number two brought forth various things, and among them a buck-horn handled knife with two blades, one of which was broken. On seeing this I could hardly contain myself, and was about to say something, when Inspector P gave me a look, as much as to say, “Mum for the present,” that functionary at the same time saying to John in the blandest and most insinuating manner, “Now, just let you and I have five minutes’ conversation inside the house, and then you can go on with your work.”
So into the house they walked: I was then walking behind them. Presently I observed P (without turning his head in the least on one side), impatiently shaking something in his hand, which he held behind his back, as if for me to take it, so I walked up to the side of him, and unobserved by John, he slipped into my hand the knife with the broken blade.
I knew then what I had to do, and showing the inspector and his new acquaintance into a room, went into another room, got a sheet of note paper, placed on it the two broken bits of blade before alluded to, and then opening the broken blade of the knife, put it to the broken bits, and the three made a complete knife, and a complete case. For on my return to my friends in the other room, I merely said, “It’s all right, P, it’s a case.”
P thereupon quietly took from his pocket a most elegant pair of bracelets, very bright, and made of iron, but with this peculiarity about them, that they were joined together by about three inches of strong chain; and with these ornaments he adorned the wrists of our now common acquaintance the gardener, John. By this time the policeman had arrived with the dog-cart, in which John, the gardener, was asked to go for an airing.
Now, at 4 a.m., John, the gardener, was cutting away the putty from my window; at 2 p.m he was seated, decorated as I have described, in the smartest of dog-carts, between Inspector P and Policeman X, of the Hants Constabulary, on his road to W gaol.
The case came on before the late Baron A. He was indicted for burglary, but was directed by the judge to be acquitted, as to constitute a burglary it must be proved that a portion of the person must enter the premises, and this entry the evidence did not sufficiently prove. But, by the direction of the judge, he was detained and re-indicted for misdemeanour, all the evidence being gone over again; the jury did not take five minutes to pronounce a verdict of Guilty, and he was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour.
A hint to gentle burglars in general.—If he had flung away the knife with the broken blade, he might have got off. The correspondence of two minute pieces of steel convicted him.
THE FATHER OF THE REGIMENT.
(AN OLD GRENADIER’S STORY OF AN EPISODE IN THE
RETREAT OF NAPOLEON’S “GRANDE ARMÉE” FROM MOSCOW.)
Thick snow-wreaths weighed upon the firs,
Snow shrouded all the plain,
Snow brooded in the dusky clouds,
Snow matted the chill rain,
Snow filled the valleys to the brim,
Snow whitened all the air;
The snow-drifts on the Dnieper road
Blinded us with their glare.
The white snow on our eagles weighed,
It capped each crimson plume;
Knee-deep it now began to rise,
Striking us all with gloom.
It clotted on our waggon wheels,
And on our knapsacks weighed,
It clung to every soldier’s breast,
And every bayonet blade.
It quenched the shells and dulled the shot,
That round us faster fell,
As all our bayonets glancing moved
Down the long Russian dell
That to the Dnieper river bore.
Ney battled in our rear;
Griloff was nearly on us then,
The Cossacks gathered near.
The Russian lancers charged our guards,
Our grenadiers, and horse;
The Russian serfs, with axe and knife,
Were gathering in force,
