The Torch and Other Tales | Page 8

and joined his wife in blessing
the Maker for His mercy and calming the sorrows and terrors of their
little lad.
An unrestful Christmas for the local police, and the countryside was
soon busy over Teddy Pegram, while next day the box of chocolates
received attention and was found so full of venom as the poisoner could
pack 'em.
A nine days' wonder and no more, for though the police was so placed
they could soon learn a lot they didn't know about the would-be
murderer, the wretch himself escaped 'em that time. But a very
interesting thing threw light, and when Teddy's cottage came to be
hunted over, though not a stick offered to show who he might be, or
where he might have sped, some fingerprints was took by the police
and they got a good picture off an empty bottle in a cupboard and
another off a frying-pan. And so it got to be understood that 'Santa
Claus' was a famous criminal, who had come to Little Silver straight
from seven years of penal servitude for manslaughter and had a record
so long as from Newgate to Prince town. And he was sixty-three years
old, or so they thought.

They traced him back to London and lost him there; but five years
afterwards Hiram Linklater, for that was his famous name, swung in
earnest for murder of a woman in the Peak of Derbyshire. Always for
rural districts he was and a great one for the wonders of nature. He told
the chaplain of his adventures at Little Silver, and expressed penitence
afore he dropped. He also said that nothing in his whole career had
given him more pleasure than to hear how his Christmas Eve effort
down in Devonshire had miscarried after all. And he pointed out how,
by the will of God, his own gift to the little boy had saved him!
And he was said to have made a brave end; which no doubt ain't as
difficult as people imagine.
'Tis the like of Hiram Linklater I reckon, as keep up the sentiment of
approval for capital punishment; because even in the softest head, it
must be granted that a baby-poisoner is the sort that's better under the
earth than on it.

No. II
THE RETURNED NATIVE
Of course, every human being did ought to be interesting to their fellow
creatures, and yet, such is the weakness of human nature, that we all
know folk so cruel dull in mind and body that an instinct rises in us to
flee from 'em at sight and never go where there's a chance of running
across 'em. It ain't Christian, but everybody knows such deadly
characters none the less, and you might say without straining charity,
that Mrs. Pedlar was such a one.
Being a widow she had that triumphant fact to show how somebody
had found her interesting enough to wed, and there's no doubt, by God's
all-seeing goodness, the dull people do find each other out and comfort
one another.
Jane Pedlar couldn't have been particular dreadful to Noah Pedlar else
he wouldn't have married her and stopped with her, for they was thirty

years wed before he dropped, and though she was too dull to have any
childer, or ever larn to cook a mutton chop so as a man could eat it with
pleasure, yet she held him. He didn't leave much money, because he
never earned much, yet he did a pretty good stroke for Jane before he
died, and got his employer, Farmer Bewes, to let Jane bide safe in her
cottage for her lifetime.
There weren't nothing written between master and man; but Nicholas
Bewes, who owned the place, came to see Noah Pedlar on his
death-bed, and when Noah put up a petition for Mrs. Pedlar to be
allowed to bide rent free to her end, Bewes, who was a bit on the
sentimental side and minded that the old chap had worked for him and
his father before him for more than half a century, promised that Jane
might have the use of the house for her life.
Noah Pedlar had never rose to be farmer's right-hand man or anything
like that. He was a humble creature, faithful unto death, but no use
away from hedge-tacking and such rough jobs; yet he'd done his duty
according to his limits, however narrow they might be, and so he got
his way on his death-bed, and, in the sudden surprise that such a
landmark as Noah was going home, Farmer Bewes gave his promise.
But that was twenty year agone, and Nicholas Bewes had grown oldish
himself now, and Jane was thought to be nearer eighty than seventy by
her neighbours. Friends she had not, except for Mrs. Cobley; but