Through the manufacturing town of Weston, on a chill Christmas eve in the early part of this century, walked a thoughtful, almost middle-aged man, wrapped in a rich furred cloak, and preceded by a youth bearing a lantern. He had first left the town-hall, where he had assisted at a political meeting, and heard a few pompous speeches hung upon the scantiest may-pole of facts. While these worthies had been declaiming, thought he, how many poor men, out of employment, uncared for by their pastors, must have been murmuring or swearing at their ill-luck and the apathy of their superiors! How many might be driven to crime or suicide by their wretched circumstances! He had heard that the Dissenters helped their poor rather more effectually than the "church" people did; and, luckily, in a manufacturing population there were always plenty of Dissenters! The Catholics, too, about whose "emancipation" there had been so much said lately in the Whig meetings, were generally a charitable set, and there were more of them in the North than anywhere else in the kingdom; but they were mostly country people, and the great houses had enough to do to support their own village poor. Could not something be done on a generous scale by the talkative municipality of the town? Should he suggest something to that effect? But he was only a visitor and traveller, and had but little interest with the magnates of Weston. General knowledge there was none at that time; and it mattered nothing to the local authorities here that he had travelled in the East, was a professor of ancient history in a French university, and corresponded with half the savants of Europe. To the insular mind of a trading community, he was a mere nameless atom of humanity, whose doings only concerned Weston as far as the paying of his reckoning at the inn, and his consumption of the most costly items that the scarcity of the times rendered a fair source of profit to the landlord.
As he was sunk in these half-derisive thoughts, he was suddenly accosted by a man, whose figure, as far as the light of the lantern revealed it, was the very reverse of a highwayman. He had a pistol, however, and held it threateningly to the gentleman's heart. In a hollow, unsteady voice he quickly asked:
"Sir, hand me your money; you know what I can do, if you refuse, and I see you are unarmed."
The man's manner contrasted strangely with his present occupation. He was no experienced robber, that was evident; and his eyes rolled from side to side like those of a hunted animal. Our friend, who called himself Prof. John Stamyn, very quietly replied:
"My good friend, you have come to the wrong man. You will have no great booty from me. I have only three guineas about me, which are not worth a scuffle; so much good may you do with them. But you are in a bad way."
The man did not answer or recriminate. Hanging his head and lowering his pistol (an useless weapon enough, since the trigger was broken off and the barrel was cracked), he took the money offered him, and moved quickly away. Mr. Stamyn stood looking thoughtfully after him, then he said to the youth:
"Mind, James, and watch that man carefully, that he may not be aware of you; but be careful to see him housed, and bring me word of everything." And shaking his head, as if in pity, he walked back alone to his hotel.
Meanwhile, the boy, proud of his mission, cautiously started on his pursuit of the seeming robber. Many a time he had to darken his lantern with his cloak, or flatten himself against doors, as the man he pursued turned round, glancing fearfully behind, and then, mending his pace, hurried on again with unsteady footsteps. Once he paused before a large, brightly lighted shop. Loaves and cakes of all shapes were piled in the window; but behind the counter sat two resolute-looking men, whose expression, as they gazed on the hungry face outside, was certainly the reverse of encouraging. The poor wayfarer turned away with a sigh, and dived down a side street. Squalid little booths alternated with equally squalid dwelling-houses along the sides of the alley, and grim, fierce, animal faces gathered in evil-looking clusters round the doors. The poor wretch hastened on; apparently none knew him, as the boy, who followed him, noticed that no one paid any attention to him. At last he stopped at a baker's shop—a dirty place, very different from the respectable one he had looked into so wistfully before. The boy waited at a convenient distance, and, by skilfully shading his lantern, remained there unperceived. There was no light, save what came from the shop—a dull flare at best. After a few minutes, the man came out, carrying a large brown loaf of the cheapest kind that was then sold in Weston. He now entered another street, and turned various corners, so that it was like threading a labyrinth to follow him. The youth then saw him disappear in the door-way of a tall, dilapidated house. The door was open, and hung awry from one rusty hinge; a nauseous smell greeted the nostrils, and shrill, disagreeable voices were heard in some up-stairs roost. The man began to scale the rickety steps, one or two of which were missing here and there, and made a break-neck gap for the undoing of careless climbers. Each landing-place seemed more disreputable than the last, until the fourth was reached. It required a good deal of ingenuity in Mr. Stamyn's messenger to creep unperceived up these dangerous ladders, never startling the man he followed, and, above all, never helping himself along by the tell-tale light, whose radiance might have betrayed him. At last the poor "robber" entered a room, bare of any apology for furniture, and unlighted, save by the frosty rays of the moon. The wind whistled through it, crevices in the wall there were plenty, and not one pane of glass in the grimy window was whole. The boy crouched outside, and listened. A crevice allowed him to see a woman and four children coiled up in a heap, trying to keep each other warm. The man threw the loaf on the floor, and a sort of gurgle rose to welcome him. Bursting into tears, he cried, in a voice half-defiant, half-choked with grief:
"There, eat your fill; that's the dearest loaf I ever bought. I have robbed a gentleman of three guineas; so let us husband them well, and let me have no more teasings; for sooner or later these doings must bring me to the gallows, and all to satisfy your clamors!"
Here the wife mingled her lamentations with his, and the hungry children set up a howl of sympathy, all the while eying the loaf impatiently. The poor woman, whimpering faintly, broke off four large portions, and distributed them among the starving little ones, reserving smaller pieces for herself and her wretched husband, who was leaning despairingly on the window-sill.