CHAPTER VIII.
‘Nature often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak bosoms—oftenest, God bless her! in female breasts.’
Quite close to the gardens Susan meets one of the under-gardeners at Crosby Park.
‘I suppose Master Jacky and I can go in and see the gardens, Brown?’
‘Oh yes, miss, o’ course. But I’m afraid there’s no one there. As it happens, no one’s working there to-day. ’Tis a holiday, you know, miss. An’ the gates are locked.’
It happens, indeed, to be a saint’s day, or holiday—one of the innumerable saints’ days that are held sacred in Ireland, and on which no man will work, if he is a Roman Catholic labourer, though the loss of the day’s hireis a severe strain upon his slender resources. And the funny part of this arrangement is that, though they are too religious to support their families by working on these days, they never know what saint’s day it is, or anything in the world about him—or her.
‘Oh!’ says Susan; she had forgotten about its being a holiday, though both the maids had gone to chapel in the morning, leaving her and Betty to make up the many beds. Her tone is so disappointed that Brown drags out a key from his trousers pocket.
‘If ye’ll take this, miss, ye can let yoself in, an’ ye can lave it at the lodge wid Mrs. Donovan whin ye’re goin’ back.’
‘Oh, thank you, Brown!’ says Susan joyfully; and diving into her pocket, she produces twopence (it is quite a sum for Susan, whose pennies are very scarce), and gives it to him, an instinct born with her—a sort of pride—compelling her to reward the underling. And yet she had refused to give Tommy—the baby, the youngest of all,and the dearest to her of the children after Bonnie—a halfpenny out of that twopence only this morning.
‘Thank you, miss,’ says Brown, with considerably more gratitude than he would have shown another if she had given him half a crown, and Susan, who had paid for the key quite as much for her own sake as for Jacky’s, goes on her way rejoicing.
Yes, the gate is locked. Susan, having unlocked it, carefully removes the key, locks it on the other side, and goes down the broad, beautiful, scented path with Jacky beside her. Some of the houses are near, but not so worthy of notice as those that come after, and through these they hurry to the great glass ones beyond—where the roses are all a-growing, all a-blowing, in magnificent profusion—that are always kept up in a very perfect state, though the master of them be in the Soudan or North America, or among the highest peaks of the Andes.
Between these two sets of houses runs a wall, now laden with cherry-trees in fullfruit, and as Susan and her brother emerge from the seedling-house into the freer air, she catches sight of something that brings her to a standstill.
Against the wall where the cherries are growing stands a ladder, and on the top of it—a man.
Now, Susan knows all the gardeners at Crosby Park, and even those beneath them, and certainly this man is not one of them.
She turns and retreats on Jacky, who is just behind her, and for a moment fear covers her. She has never been brought face to face with a thief before—few girls have been—and a desire to fly is the thought uppermost in her breast. She glances upward fearfully to the figure on the top of the wall, who is hastily pulling off the cherries and dropping them into the basket he has slung on to the top of the ladder. She draws her breath quickly. Could anything be more premeditated—could anything show more plainly what a determined roguehe is? And to-day of all days! A holiday, when, of course, he knew that all the gardeners would be away, and the place safe to him! No doubt he had climbed the outside wall—thieves can do anything—and had found the ladder inside with which to rob poor Mr. Crosby, who is now goodness knows how many miles away.
Susan stands rooted to the ground, not knowing whether to stay or fly. Old stories of heroines return to her, and it seems to her that it would be base to steal away now and say nothing; even if she happened to gain the walk outside, it is doubtful whether she should meet any servant, this being a saint’s day; and if she did, would he be willing to tackle a real live thief single-handed? As she hesitates, she again looks at the man, and notices that he is glancing from right to left, hesitating, as if either uneasy or else with a view to choosing the best fruit. Both ideas anger her, but the second more than the first. Uneasy? of course he is! And no wonder, too! A thief must necessarilybe uneasy. And to attempt to steal here, in this lovely secluded place!
The owner of Crosby Park has been so long away that Susan has almost adopted his place as her own. Many years ago Mr. Crosby, who had been a pupil of Mr. Barry’s, had given directions that every member of the Barry family should have free right to his grounds, and Susan, once come to years of discretion—not so long ago—has taken great advantage of this kindly permission. It is so near to the Vicarage, and so lovely! All its walks and pretty windings are so well known to her. They have been much to her, indeed, during all these years, though so little to the actual possessor of them, who has evidently found more pleasure in shooting grizzlies than in cultivating cherries.
That now someone has come to steal these cherries seems dreadful to Susan. With that poor man away, too—at the end of the world probably, shooting, or being shot by, some of those awful Indians! Again she casts her frightened glance at the thief, still high onhis ladder and secure from detection now that all the servants are away; and something in his air—an insolent security, perhaps—drives her to action.
No, she will not fly! She will tell him, at all events, what she thinks of him before flying. She makes her way straight to the foot of the ladder, wrath in her bosom, and addresses him.
‘I wonder you aren’t ashamed of yourself!’ cries she, righteous indignation in her tones and in her lovely uplifted eyes.
The sweet voice rings up the ladder. The start that the thief on the top of it gives, when he hears her, condemns him to all eternity in Susan’s eyes. ‘No one,’ argues Susan to herself, ‘ever starts unless he is guilty.’ Susan is very young.
The man casts a sidelong glance at her. It is so one-sided that Susan hardly sees him, but evidently he is trembling, conscience-stricken, because he makes no reply.
‘Come down!’ says Susan again, her courage mounting with the occasion. Hertone is now severely calm, and without a vestige of fear. After all, he is a poor creature whom even a girl can frighten, so small is the courage of the unrighteous! ‘Do you know what you are doing? You’—with accumulated scorn—‘are stealing!’
This terrible charge brings the culprit round. He sinks upon the topmost rung of the ladder, as if overcome, and pulls his cap over his eyes, evidently to avoid recognition. Says Susan to herself: ‘He is ashamed, poor creature!’ and seeing the abject attitude of the wretch, she grows bolder, and presses the wondering Jacky to her side, and tells him to take courage. This poor man will not kill them. No—no, indeed.
‘Yes, stealing,’ repeats she, her fair, beautiful face uplifted to the sinner’s above her. There is a second pause, during which, perhaps, the sinner takes note of it.
‘I——’ begins he, then pauses. Susan’s eyes are looking into his, and Susan’s face, implacable and austere, no doubt has daunted him. But Susan tells herself that consciousguilt has rendered him silent. After awhile, however, he makes another attempt.
‘I——’ says he again, and again stops. It is contemptible! Susan turns a scornful glance upon him.
‘It is not to be defended,’ says she. ‘To steal from a garden like this! From a garden that the owner has so kindly left open to many people—who has besides been so kind, and who has helped all the poor in the district. He has given forty blankets where another has given ten, and coals without restriction everywhere. And these beautiful gardens, too—he has given these as a recreation to some who have no lovely gardens of their own; and now you take advantage of a day like this, when all the servants are away, to defraud this kind, kind man and steal his cherries. Oh, how can you bear to be so bad?’
‘If you would hear me!’ begins the man on the top of the ladder, in a low tone. He is evidently immensely touched by the scorn of the young evangelist below, because his voice is very low and uncertain.
‘There is nothing to be said,’ says Susan, her eyes gleaming with honest disgust. ‘There is no excuse for you. You are here stealing Mr. Crosby’s cherries, and, as I said before, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Still, miss, if you would listen a moment!’ He has pulled his cap even closer over his brows.
‘You needn’t do that,’ says Susan. ‘Poor creature! you need not be afraid of me; I will not give you up to justice!’
‘Thank you kindly, miss,’ comes from the wretched creature behind the cap. He is evidently struggling with emotion.
‘I don’t want you to thank me,’ says Susan, who is feeling inclined to cry. She has often read of thieves, but never met one until now, and it seems to her, all at once, that they are decidedly interesting, so ready to hear—to receive admonition, too. ‘I want you to promise me that for the future you will abstain from—from thieving of any sort.’
‘I’ll promise you, miss—I will indeed. I’d promise you anything.’ Poor thing! heseems quite overcome. ‘But, miss, I wasn’t really stealing just now.’
‘Oh, nonsense!’ says Susan; a revulsion of feeling makes her once again hard to him. Confession is good for the soul, but denial—and such a useless denial, too, caught in the act as he is—savours of folly, that worst of all things, for which there is no forgiveness.
‘Do you think I did not see you? Why, look at that basket; it is nearly full. How can you say you were not stealing those cherries? Better to show some regret than to carry off your crime in such a barefaced way.’
It is hardly barefaced, the unhappy culprit’s face being now quite hidden by his cap.
‘Just think,’ says Susan, her clear, sweet voice trembling with grief because of this sinner; ‘if you had a garden, would you like people to come into it and steal your fruit?’
The poor thief is evidently beginning to feel the situation acutely. He has taken out his handkerchief in a surreptitious fashion, and is rubbing his eyes with it.
‘I shouldn’t mind if it was you, miss,’ says he, in a stifled tone.
Poor thing! he is evidently very sorry.
‘You won’t give me up, miss?’
‘No, no!’ cries Susan hastily. ‘But I do hope you see and are grieved for what you are doing. When people are so good and so generous as to let other people go through their grounds and get a great deal of enjoyment out of them, I think the least those others may do is to respect them, and their shrubs, and fruit, and flowers.’
‘You’re right, miss. I seem as if I never saw it like that till now.’
‘Ah! that’s what they all say,’ says Susan sadly, and with a sigh. She has a good deal to do with her father’s impenitent penitents. ‘But you are no doubt from some distant parish. A tramp, I suppose,’ says Susan, with another sigh. ‘At all events, I am sure you do not belong to this part of the world, as your voice is strange to me.’
‘I’ve come a long way, miss, indeed.’
‘Poor man! Perhaps you are hungry,’says Susan. Again she searches her pocket, and produces the last coin in it—the last coin she has in the world, for the matter of that—and lays a sixpenny bit on the lowest rung of the ladder.
‘Perhaps this may help you,’ says she. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t any more, but I haven’t. And now remember I expect you to keep your promise. I shall not report you, or get you into trouble of any sort; in fact, this’—gently—‘shall be a secret between you and me; but I do expect you to go away without those cherries, and with the promise never to steal again.’
‘I promise you that, miss, most gratefully. I’ll never steal again. But, miss, might I give the cherries to you or the young gentleman?’
‘No, no!’ says Susan in horror. She catches Jacky’s hand and draws him away from temptation. After going a yard or two, however, she looks back; and the thief, who has been looking after her, again pulls his cap hurriedly over his guilty face.
‘The gate is locked,’ says she; ‘how will you get out?’
‘The way I came, miss,’ says the bad man, with open signs of contrition.
‘I see—yes,’ says Susan sadly. ‘But go at once. I trust you—remember.’
‘I’ll never forget it, miss,’ says the unhappy man, sinking down upon the ladder and covering his face with his hands.
‘Jacky,’ says Susan, when they have left the garden and locked the door carefully behind them, ‘if you ever say a word about that poor creature, I’ll never think the same of you again. Do you hear? He is a wretched thief; but I have given my word not to betray him, and you must give your word too. Poor man! I think he was sincerely sorry. You won’t say a word at home or anywhere, Jacky?’
‘No,’ says Jacky. He looks at her. ‘Why couldn’t you have taken the cherries?’ says he.
It takes the entire remainder of the walk home to make the ‘why’ clear to him.