This morbidly-dejected state of mind was aggravated by the morose, grasping disposition—so entirely different from what Mr. Bridgman had fondly prophesied of Mark—manifested in greater strength with every succeeding year by his son Andrew, a strangely unlovable and gloomy-tempered boy, as if the anxiety and trouble of the time during which he had been hurried into the world had been impressed upon his temperament and character. It may be, too, that he felt irritated at, and jealous of his father's ceaseless repinings for the loss of his eldest son, who, if recovered, would certainly monopolize the lion's share of the now large family property—but not one whit too large in his—Andrew Bridgman's—opinion for himself alone.
The young man had not very long to wait for it. He had just passed his twentieth year when his father died at the early age of forty-seven The last wandering thoughts of the dying parent reverted to the lost child. "Hither Mark," he faintly murmured, as the hushed mourners round his bed watched with mute awe the last flutterings of departing life; "hither: hold me tightly by the hand, or you may lose yourself in this dark, dark wood." These were his last words. On the will being opened, it was found that the whole of his estate, real and personal, had been bequeathed to his son Andrew, charged only with an annuity of £500 to his mother, during life. But, should Mark be found, the property was to be his, similarly charged with respect to Mrs. Bridgman, and £100 yearly to his brother Andrew, also for life, in addition.
On the evening of the tenth day after his father's funeral, young Mr. Bridgman sat up till a late hour examining various papers and accounts connected with his inheritance, and after retiring to bed, the exciting nature of his recent occupation hindered him from sleeping. While thus lying awake, his quick ear caught a sound as of some one breaking into the house through one of the lower casements. He rose cautiously, went out on the landing, and soon satisfied himself that his suspicion was a correct one. The object of the burglars was, he surmised, the plate in the house of which there was an unusually large quantity, both his father and grandfather having expended much money in that article of luxury. Andrew Bridgman was any thing but a timid person—indeed, considering that six men altogether slept in the house, there was but little cause for fear—and he softly returned to his bedroom, unlocked a mahogany case, took out, loaded and primed, two pistols, and next roused the gardener and groom, whom he bade noiselessly follow him. The burglars—three in number, as it proved—had already reached and opened the plate-closet. One of them was standing within it, and the others just without. "Hallo! rascals," shouted Andrew Bridgman, from the top of a flight of stairs, "what are you doing there?"
The startled and terrified thieves glanced hurriedly round, and the two outermost fled instantly along the passage pursued by the two servants, one of whom had armed himself with a sharp-pointed kitchen knife. The other was not so fortunate. He had not regained the threshold of the closet when Andrew Bridgman fired. The bullet crashed through the wretched man's brain, and he fell forward, stone-dead, upon his face. The two others escaped—one of them after a severe struggle with the knife-armed groom.
It was sometime before the uproar in the now thoroughly-alarmed household had subsided; but at length the screaming females were pacified, and those who had got up, persuaded to go to bed again. The corpse of the slain burglar was removed to an out-house, and Andrew Bridgman returned to his bedroom. Presently there was a tap at the door. It was Sarah Hollins. "I am come to tell you something," said the now aged woman, with a significant look. "The person you have shot is the Richard Green you have so often heard of."
The young man, Hollins afterward said, seemed much startled by this news, and his countenance flushed and paled in quick succession. "Are you quite sure this is true?" he at last said.
"Quite; though he's so altered that, except, Missus, I don't know any body else in the house that is likely to recognize him. Shall I tell her?"
"No, no, not on any account. It would only recall unpleasant events, and that quite uselessly. Be sure not to mention your suspicion—your belief, to a soul."
"Suspicion! belief!" echoed the woman. "It is a certainty. But, of course, as you wish it, I shall hold my tongue."
So audacious an attempt created a considerable stir in the locality, and four days after its occurrence a message was sent to Red Lodge from Bury St. Edmunds, that two men, supposed to be the escaped burglars, were there in custody, and requesting Mr. Bridgman's and the servants' attendance on the morrow, with a view to their identification. Andrew Bridgman, the gardener, and groom, of course, obeyed the summons, and the prisoners were brought into the justice-room before them. One was a fellow of about forty, a brutal-visaged, low-browed, sinister-looking rascal, with the additional ornament of a but partially closed hare-lip. He was unhesitatingly sworn to by both men. The other, upon whom, from the instant he entered, Andrew Bridgman had gazed with eager, almost, it seemed, trembling curiosity, was a well-grown young man of, it might be, three or four and twenty, with a quick, mild, almost timid, unquiet, troubled look, and features originally comely and pleasing, there could be no doubt, but now smirched and blotted into ill favor by excess, and other evil habits. He gave the name of "Robert Williams."