Thursday, 10th. To-day I was spanked for the first time. When I have stopped crying, I mean to analyse my sensations. Sometimes, in Kensington Gardens, I feel like a boy who is never growing up. . .
II.—THE CAPTAIN FROM BATH.
Extract from the Memoirs of GABRIEL FOOT, Highwayman.
Our plan of attack upon Nanscarne House was a simple one.
The old baronet, Sir Harry Dinnis, took a just pride in his silver-ware. Some of it dated from Elizabeth: for Sir Harry's great-great-grandfather, as the unhappy alternative of melting it down for King Charles, had taken arms against his Majesty and come out of the troubles of those times with wealth and credit.
The house, too, was Elizabethan, shaped like the letter L, and, like that letter, facing eastward. The longer arm, which looked down the steep slope of the park, contained the entrance-hall, chapel, dining-hall, principal living-rooms, and kitchens.
The ground-floor of the other (and to us more important) arm was taken up by the housekeeper's rooms, audit-room and various offices, the butler's bedroom, and the strong-room, where the plate lay. On the upper floor a long gallery full of pictures ran from end to end, with a line of doors on the southern side, all opening into bedrooms, except one which led to the back-stairs.
Now, properly speaking, the strong-room was no strong-room at all. It had an ordinary deal door and an ordinary country-made lock. But in some ways it was very strong indeed. The only approach to it on the ground-floor lay through the butler's bedroom, of which you might call it but a cupboard. It had no window, and could not therefore be attacked from outside. The very small amount of light that entered it filtered through a pane of glass in the wall of the back-staircase, which ran up close behind.
I have said enough, I hope, for any reflective man to draw the conclusion that, since we desired no unpleasantness with the butler (a man between fifty and sixty, and notoriously incorruptible), our only plan was to make an entrance upstairs by the long window at the end of the picture gallery or corridor—whichever you choose to call it—descend the back-stairs, remove the pane of glass from the wall, and gain the strong-room through the opening.