The Stories of the Three Burglars | Page 9

ladies would remain and listen to me a few
moments, I am sure I would make you aware that there is much to
extenuate the apparent offence which I have committed to-night."
My wife did not answer him, but turning to me said, smiling, "If he
alludes to their drinking your wine he need not apologize."
The man looked at her with an expression as if her words had pained
him.
"Madam," he said, "if you consent to listen to my explanations and the
story of this affair, I am sure your feelings toward me would not be so
harsh."
"Now, then," said my Aunt Martha, "if he has a story to tell he ought to
be allowed to tell it, even in a case like this. Nobody should be judged
until he has said what he thinks he ought to say. Let us hear his story."
I laughed. "Any statement he may make," I said, "will probably deserve
a much stronger name than stories."
"I think that what you say is true," remarked my wife; "but still if he
has a story to tell I should like to hear it."
I think I heard David give a little grunt; but he was too well bred to say
anything.
"Very well," said I, "if you choose to sit up and hear him talk, it is your
affair. I shall be obliged to remain here anyway, and will not object to
anything that will help to pass away the time. But these men must not
be the only ones who are seated. David, you and Alice can clear away

that broken table and the rest of the stuff, and then we might as well sit
down and make ourselves comfortable."
Alice, with cloth and brush, approached very timidly the scene of the
disaster; but the younger burglar, who was nearest to her, gazed upon
her with such a gentle and quiet air that she did not seem to be
frightened. When she and David had put the room in fair order, I placed
two easy-chairs for my wife and Aunt Martha at a moderate distance
from the burglars, and took another myself a little nearer to them, and
then told David to seat himself near the other end of the bench, and
Alice took a chair at a little distance from the ladies.
"Now, then," said Aunt Martha to the burglars, "I would like very much
to hear what any one of you can say in extenuation of having broken
into a gentleman's house by night."
Without hesitation the tall man began his speech. He had a long and
rather lean, close-shaven face, which at present bore the expression of
an undertaker conducting a funeral. Although it was my aunt who had
shown the greatest desire to hear his story, he addressed himself to my
wife. I think he imagined that she was the more influential person of
the two.
"Madam," said he, "I am glad of the opportunity of giving you and your
family an idea of the difficulties and miseries which beset a large class
of your fellow-beings of whom you seldom have any chance of
knowing anything at all, but of whom you hear all sorts of the most
misleading accounts. Now, I am a poor man. I have suffered the
greatest miseries that poverty can inflict. I am here, suspected of having
committed a crime. It is possible that I may be put to considerable
difficulty and expense in proving my innocence."
"I shouldn't wonder," I interrupted. To this remark he paid no attention.
"Considering all this," he continued, "you may not suppose, madam,
that as a boy I was brought up most respectably and properly. My
mother was a religious woman, and my father was a boat-builder. I was
sent to school, and my mother has often told me that I was a good
scholar. But she died when I was about sixteen, and I am sure had this
not happened I should never have been even suspected of breaking the
laws of my country. Not long after her death my father appeared to lose
interest in his business, and took to rowing about the river instead of
building boats for other people to row. Very often he went out at night,

and I used to wonder why he should care to be on the water in the
darkness, and sometimes in the rain. One evening at supper he said to
me: 'Thomas, you ought to know how to row in the dark as well as in
the daytime. I am going up the river to-night, and you can come with
me.'
"It was about my ordinary bedtime when we took a boat with two pair
of oars, and we pulled up the river about three miles above