He carried his good stick.
"They"ll have pistols sure, and knives maybe, but give me a good whack with this at close range, and I"ll beat "em, pistols and all."
His position was cramped and uncomfortable, but he did not care. He crouched into as small a s.p.a.ce as possible. The time seemed long, but he never thought of giving up; he was there to stay.
The convent bell tolled the hours: eight, nine, ten. Then a step, soft and slow on the pavement, and he saw two feet. Another step as noiseless as a wild beast"s; and he saw two more feet.
Jerry was right. There were three men instead of two--one inside, two out.
Presently came whispered words too low for him to catch, and he heard a bolt cautiously slipped.
One pair of feet disappeared; the other pair remained. This fellow on the outside would prevent the police from surprising the two within.
Should Jerry tackle the watching burglar now or wait?
"I wonder how many more of them there are?" thought Jerry, as he took firm hold of his club, and eyed the waiting feet, scarcely daring to breathe.
In the meantime, the police stationed back and front had seen the two men arrive and one enter; but, not having reached the convent gate early enough, they did not know that a third man was within. They kept guard and thought they had a sure thing of nabbing the burglars as they emerged with their spoils.
Then suddenly the stillness of the hour was broken by the loud report of a pistol not half a square away. All the policemen rushed in the direction of the sound, and saw a man fleeing in the distance. Two of them pursued him, blowing their whistles as they ran. The other two stopped to argue whether they had better help their comrades or return to their former hiding-place.
But while they talked an exciting scene had occurred. As soon as the shot was fired the thief on the outside made a break for the gate. Jerry started after him, but the rogue jumped the fence, and ran off, so, not to waste time in a fruitless chase, the crooked little old man turned back to find himself confronted by two more fugitives. For the shot on the outside was a prearranged warning of danger, and as soon as the burglars on the inside heard it, they rushed from the house with their booty.
They, too, were about to jump the fence when Jerry, wondering what the police were doing, and desperate at the idea of all three of the rascals eluding them, sprang at them brandishing his club and yelling like a dozen Comanche Indians.
At the same time Mr. Morton appeared at the door with a shot-gun, and the burglars, thinking they had twenty foes instead of two, began a fight for life.
Mr. Morton stood framed in the doorway with a bright light behind him.
The man nearest Jerry, the same strapping fellow who had entered in the afternoon, raised his arm, and there was a flash of metal as he took steady aim at Mr. Morton"s breast. Another instant, and ten little children would have been fatherless; but a resounding whack from a hickory stick sent a shot into the air, and the hand that held the pistol dropped, nerveless. The would-be murderer tottered a few steps, then fell in a heap on the gra.s.s.
The remaining burglar, seeing that the game was up, dropped his plunder, and started to run. But, as luck would have it, he ran straight into the arms of the two policemen, who were returning to the spot they ought never to have quitted; and the policemen, not being able to get away, could not help making him their prisoner.
The same luck befriended the other two officers; for, coming back from a fruitless chase of the man who had fired the decoying shot, they fortunately were in time to capture the man who had jumped the fence, and were heroes among their fellows for nine days after.
The commotion had roused the whole neighbourhood. Windows were raised by frightened women, and half-dressed men ran into the street. Lights were quickly brought, and an excited crowd gathered round the prisoners, talking and asking a thousand questions.
The two men were handcuffed, and were about being carried off when a dark object on the gra.s.s attracted attention. A man, alive but unable to move. "Who is he?" "How did he get there?" Everybody surprised excepting Jerry.
"I beg your pardon, sirs," said the old fellow. "Please excuse me, sirs,"--turning humbly from one to another,--"but I had to do it. He was going to shoot, and I couldn"t stand that, sirs, so I just tapped him a bit with my friendly stick."
"And that isn"t half," interrupted Mr. Morton. "If it had not been for the stout arm of this brave old man I would be dead. See that pistol on the ground? It was aimed at me when Jerry"s club knocked the breath out of the scoundrel lying beside it."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
While her husband was speaking, Mrs. Morton had appeared, and, on hearing his words, she went up to the crooked little man. Around his tanned and wrinkled neck went her white arms, and with the tears streaming she sobbed:
"You brave, brave soldier! His children and their mother will love and bless you as long as they live!"
Jerry was so ashamed that he knew not where to look when, fortunately, the patrol wagon drove up, and the public attention was diverted by the removal of the wounded man and the prisoners to jail. He seized the opportunity to escape, and hurried across the common to his little cottage.
There his Peggy awaited him. In those arms he was never ashamed; to her he was always a hero; and as, listening to his story, she gazed at him with eyes overflowing with tenderness, he felt that the earth could not contain a happier man than Jerry Myer.
CHAPTER IX.
PADDY MAKES THE EFFORT OF HIS LIFE
To make up for lost time Jerry hurried early to his work the next morning. He had finished his duties at the convent, and was on his way to the wharf when he met Mr. Morton, who stopped to shake hands and inquire how Peggy had stood the fright. Naturally they talked over the night"s adventure.
Mr. Morton had several items of news, for the nurse had been arrested, and had made a full confession. If successful, the robbery was to have been the prelude for more in the same neighbourhood. It had been carefully planned by a gang of professional thieves. The pistol-shot had been fired by a confederate not only to inform the burglars that they had been discovered, but to decoy the police from the scene of action so that the thieves could make their escape.
"They did not count on your big stick, Jerry. Had it not been for you, every man of them would have gotten away."
"Sure they wouldn"t, sir. Some of them would have been caught. But them p"lices are curious creeters. Now if I already had as many thieves on my hands as I could well look after, it never would have entered my head to go on a wild-goose chase after others. There"s no accountin" for them p"lices" minds, anyway. And as for their bodies--well, did you ever see one that was not that fat that any thief at all couldn"t outrun?"
Mr. Morton laughed. "I suppose they get them that way so they will stay where they are put."
"And so they can"t run away from the thieves," added Jerry. "Now for all that I"m crooked, being thin, I"m nimble."
"Indeed you are; and furthermore, you have such good judgment that you saved the battle last night."
"I didn"t mean that," cried Jerry, in distress and embarra.s.sment.
"n.o.body could have done any less than I did."
"You mean any more, man. To my dying day I shall never forget what I owe you nor the sound of the whack of that stick. But, see here, Jerry, you are not going to the wharf to-day?"
"Please, sir, I have to."
"No, you don"t. You are getting old, and ought not to work so hard. My wife and I have been making inquiries, and we know all about you and your sick wife. How would you like to be janitor in the building where I have my office?"
"I"d like it, sir, if you think I"d suit. Are they needing a new man?"
"I heard only yesterday the present man had given notice, and I promised to be on the lookout for a new one. I think the place would suit you, and you it--it pays a fair salary." And here Mr. Morton named a sum that seemed so large to poor Jerry that his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"Ah, I never could be worth all that, sir! But what a great thing it would be for Peggy!" And visions of unburnt coal in large lumps and real feather pillows and other luxuries for his suffering wife pa.s.sed through his mind.
"I am sure you can fill the position admirably, and the salary is not half so large as you deserve. Come along and we will apply without loss of time."
Applying was a mere form, as Mr. Morton"s recommendation was enough. The new janitor was engaged, and promised to enter upon his duties as soon as the convent could find a man to take his place.
Before this happened, Jefferson Square experienced a complete upsetting.
All the children were summoned to meet in Mrs. Morton"s long drawing-room, and came trooping to see what was wanted: the Earlys, the Rickersons, the Bakers, the Longs, the Adamses, the Morton children themselves, and, last of all, Mrs. Outcast with Mimy and the six other little Outcasts trailing behind. You may be sure none of them were late.
The curiosity of the children was roused to its highest pitch. They couldn"t imagine what kind of a party it was going to be with chairs in rows like church. And when they were all seated Mrs. Morton looked so serious, that Addy Gravvy whispered to his neighbour, "I know--it"s a funeral."
Then Mrs. Morton made them a long speech. She told a story of a worthy old man working from morning till night to provide the barest necessities for his sick wife; she told of that wife"s patience, of her cruel accident and suffering, of her devotion to her husband; she repeated the story of the way both of them had risked their lives to save the property of neighbours who barely knew of their existence. Then she drew a picture of twenty-one thoughtless little imps, jibing and jeering the hardworking man who was worth all the rest of the square put together--fathers and mothers included--and by the time she reached this point all twenty-one of the imps, and seven others who were not imps, were boohooing and bellowing in a way that was a caution.