CHAPTER XXV.
For a short space we must not only leave sweet Helen Barham in the house of Yelverly, but Lieberg, with all machinations in his head, and turn to schemes of a different kind, and at a different spot. It was in the back room of a low public house that, on the very day which witnessed Lieberg's arrival in London from the town of Deal, there sat together four as powerful and determined-looking fellows as ever perhaps met, with a view of consulting upon the grand purpose of cutting a purse, or proving that there are other people, as well as the little god of love, who can laugh at locksmiths. In the chair--for it will always be found, in civil and political matters alike, that the meetings which assemble for the purpose of setting all laws and regulations at defiance, must have their laws and regulations likewise--in the chair of this gallant and respectable assembly, was placed that worthy gentleman, Harry Martin, whom we have had the honour of bringing before our readers on more than one occasion. On his right was a gentleman who was delivering himself with a great deal more eloquence than is usually met with, either on the hustings or the Commons House of Parliament--though, like the oratory of those places, his had its peculiar characteristics, which suited it to the auditory who were to hear it--he was delivering himself, I say, of a speech, to which I can only do partial justice, both from a want of a thorough knowledge of the copious tongue in which it was composed; and also from lack of space to give all the figures of rhetoric, the tropes, the metaphors, the similes, with which it was ornamented. The tendency of the speech, however, was to incite his hearers to undertake a great enterprise; and an expedition against Carthage, or a war against Philip, was never debated with more vehemence and animation.
"I'll tell you what, Simes," he said--"you think that Martin and I do this out of regard to Bill Barham; but I tell you it is no such thing. I do it only because I think that such good luck does not fall in a man's way every day. Did you ever see a blackbird, on a sunshiny morning, sitting upon a bough, and singing as quietly as I might do at the club? Well, if he sees a great fat worm wriggle out his head, down he pounces upon him, and never ceases pulling till he has got him all out of his hole. Well, I am the blackbird, and this Old Miser Carr is the worm. I have sat cherupping here in London for a long while, till I got scent of this old fellow, and now I'll pounce upon him just like a sparrow-hawk upon a ground-lark. We will get help enough, if you don't like to go; it's not every man that has the same liberality of feeling as you think you have, to refuse his share of four or five thousand pound, just for a little bit of a smash that can be done in a minute, and we can be all over to Sheffield again, and then to London, before any one knows that we have been in the place at all. If the thing were to be done near town, I would not press it upon you, gentlemen, for there's all the risk in the world of being trapped, if we do such things too near home. But down there it's easy to do, and not easy to discover; and when four or five thousand pound is to be got, it's worth the touch of a crow-bar, or ten minutes' work with the centrebit."
"Ay, but there's the job!" cried the man he called Simes; "I want to be made sure that the thing's worth the journey. I can pick up a nice little living here in London, without going down into Yorkshire, and perhaps getting myself hanged into the bargain; so let me be sure, I say, that there is this tin, or I shall say, I would rather be excused. I am not fond of eating an empty pudding, and do not particularly like the cordwainer's company. I don't choose to be made a freeman of it, and wear the riband upon the jugular; not that I am afraid, when there's anything really to be done, but I should like to know more about the money first."
"Why, as for that, Mr. Simes," observed a stout man, with a hawk's nose, on his right hand; "you see I knew the country well enough, not long ago, when I used to do a little with the thimbles, at Doncaster. You may recollect that we, one time, had an engagement with the other gentlemen of the course; but they were too much for us, and drove us off with the butt ends of their horsewhips, and then we scattered about the country. Well, I had a gossip with one of the maids there, and sold her some real French muslin, which I picked up at York, and I asked her all about her master, Old Carr; the miser, as they called him in those parts, and she said he was prodigious rich, and never had less than two or three thousand pounds in the house, besides lots of plate."
"You hear, Simes," said Harry Martin; "so you see, whatever you may think, we don't stand only upon what Bill Barham says, because Bill does not know whether the man's rich or poor, and only knows that he's called Carr, the miser. However, you shan't want for full information; Bill has promised to bring some one with him here to-night who knows the whole place, and the people round about, for he was the Squire's groom at Bingley, which is close by. His name's Andrews, and he's now in another way of business, as a horse-dealer--and has done a clever thing or two."
"Oh, yes," replied Simes, "I know him very well--a pleasant gentleman he is. He sold old Major Groundsell the same horse three times over; first, as a black horse, with not a spot of white about him; then with the two fore feet white; and then he shaved him, docked him, and made another creature of him; but the Major could never ride him first nor last."
"No, nor anybody else," said another of the men present, "for he was a plunger, a bolter, and a rearer, and when he couldn't get you off he went over with you."
"A pleasant chap to be on the outside of," said Harry; "but let us have some more lap. Mr. Simes, may I trouble you to ring the bell. Oh, here comes Bill, and Mr. Andrews too! Mr. Andrews, good evening to you--I hope you're well, sir."
Various civilities now took place between the whole party, for the meeting was evidently a formal one, and gentlemen of that class are generally much more ceremonious on such occasions than people who consider themselves better bred. Fresh supplies of drink were brought, and as soon as the room was again clear, the subject matter of the debate was once more brought forward, and the account given by Mr. Tony Andrews was so conclusive, that even the cautious soul of Mr. Simes was fired with generous ardour, and it was determined, nem. con., that the thing should be undertaken. As soon as this was settled, William Barham--who occupied a seat by the side of Harry Martin, but a little behind the general line, not being one of the active participators in the enterprise--whispered a word or two in his friend's ear, who immediately pronounced a new oration upon the occasion. The tendency of the harangue was to shew the absolute necessity that there existed of setting about the thing at once; but in this, Martin met with no opposition whatsoever, for every man present was a veteran in his profession, and knew well that in great undertakings promptness of execution is only secondary to maturity of deliberation.