The Master Craftsman

On a certain evening of July, in the year of grace 1804, old John Burnikel sat in his own chair—that with arms and a high back—his own chair in his own place during the summer—not his winter place—on the terrace outside the Long Room of the Red Lion Tavern. This old tavern, which, they say, was once visited by King Charles the First, when he hunted a deer across the Whitechapel meadows, and afterwards took a drink on the steps of this hostelry, was built of wood, like most of the houses on the River Wall. It had a tumble-down and rickety appearance; the upper windows projected, and were either aslant or askew; the gables stood out high above the red-tiled roof, which had sunk down in the middle, and for a hundred years had threatened to fall down; there were odds and ends of buildings projecting over the river, which also had looked for a hundred years as if they were falling into it; the place had never got as much painting as it should have; the half-obliterated sign hung creaking on rusty iron hinges. As it was in 1704, so it was in 1804, tottering, but never falling; ready to drop to pieces, but never actually dropping to pieces.

The red blinds in the window looked warm and comforting on a cold winter’s night; and from many a ship homeward bound making its slow way up the river there were wafted signs of satisfaction that Wapping and the Red Lion Tavern and old John Burnikel could be seen once more.

The Long Room was on the first-floor, a room running right through the whole depth of the house, with one great window on the north, and another opening from floor to ceiling on the south. From the window on the north side could be seen in spring a lovely view of the trees and hedges of Love Lane and the broad orchards, all white and pink with blossoms of apple, pear and plum, which stretched away to the ponds and fields of Whitechapel, and to the tall buildings of the London Hospital.

The tavern, from that window, seemed to be some rural retreat far from the noisy town. In the winter, when the company was gathered round the roaring fire, with shutters close, drawn blinds, and candles lit, there was no pleasanter place for the relaxation of the better sort, nor any place where one could look for older rum or neater brandy, not to speak of choice Hollands, which some prefer to rum. For summer enjoyment there was a broad balcony or terrace overhanging the river where the company might sit and enjoy the spectacle of the homeward-bound ships sailing up, and the outward-bound sailing down, and the loading and unloading, with lighters and barges innumerable, in midstream.

The tavern stood beside Execution Dock, and the company of drinkers might sometimes, if they pleased, witness a moving spectacle of justice done on the body of some poor sailor wretch—murderer, mutineer, or pirate—who was tied to a stake at low tide and was then left to expect slow Death; for the grim Finisher dragged cruel feet and lingered, while the tide slowly rose, and little by little washed over the chin of the patient and gently lapped over his lips, and so crept higher and higher till, with relentless advance, it flowed over his nostrils, and then, with starting eyes of agony and horror, the dying man was dead. Then the tide rose higher still, and presently flowed quite over his head, and left no sign of the dreadful Thing below.

There had been, however, no execution on this day. John Burnikel sat on the terrace, the time being eight in the evening, before a table on which was a bowl of punch, his nightly drink. With him, one on each side, sat his two grand-nephews, first cousins, partners in the firm of Burnikel and Burnikel, boat-builders, of Wapping High Street—Robert and George Burnikel. The rest of the company consisted of certain reputable tradesmen of Wapping, and one or two sea-captains.

At this time John Burnikel was an extremely ancient person. His birth, in fact, as recorded in the register of St. John’s Church, Wapping, took place in the year 1710. It was not everybody who knew that date, but everybody knew that he had far surpassed the limits accorded to man. Nobody in the parish, for instance, could remember any time when John Burnikel was not visible, and walking about, an old man as it seemed, in a time when, to this riverside people, greatly addicted as they were to rum, a man of fifty was accounted old. Nor could anybody remember the time when John Burnikel was not to be found every evening in the Long Room of the Red Lion, or on the terrace overlooking the river.

Old or not, he walked erect and briskly; he looked no more than sixty; his features were not withered or shrunken or sharpened; he had no look of decrepitude; he had preserved his teeth and his hair; the only sign of age was the network of wrinkles which time had thrown over his face. And when he walked home at night he brandished his trusty club with so much resolution, and in his old arm there was still so much strength, that although the place was lawless, and robberies and assaults were common, and although he walked through the street every night alone, at ten o’clock, nobody ever molested him. Such is the virtue of a thick stick, which is far better than sword or pistol, if a man hath a reputation for readiness in its handling.

The old man lived in one of the small houses of Broad Street, in an old cottage with four rooms, with diamond panes in the window, and a descent of a foot or so from the street into the front-room. The house at the back looked out upon the open expanse of orchards and market-gardens, with a distant prospect of Whitechapel Mount. He lived quite alone, and he ‘did’ for himself, scrubbing his floors, personally conducting the weekly wash, and cooking his own food. This was simple, consisting almost entirely of beefsteaks, onions, and bread, with beer by the gallon. When he had cooked and served and eaten his breakfast or dinner, and when he had cleaned up his frying-pan and his plates, the old man would sit down in his armchair and go to sleep, in winter by the fire, in summer outside, in his back-yard. He had no books, and he wanted none; he had no friends except at the tavern, and was cheerful without them. At the tavern, however, whither John Burnikel repaired at nightfall, or about six o’clock, every evening, he was friendly, hospitable, and full of talk, drinking, taking his tobacco, and conversing with the other frequenters of the house; and since he was generous, and often called for bowls of punch, grog around, and drams, so that many an honest fellow was enabled to go home drunk who would otherwise have gone home sober, he was allowed, and even encouraged, to talk and to tell his adventures over and over again as much as he pleased. To do him justice, he was always ready to take advantage of this license, and never tired of relating the perils he had encountered, the heroism he had displayed, and the romantic manner in which he had acquired his riches.

For the old man boasted continually of his great riches, and in moments of alcoholic uplifting he would declare that he could buy up the whole of the company present, and all Wapping to boot, if he chose, and be none the worse for it. These were vapourings; but a man who could afford to spend every day from five to ten shillings at the tavern, drinking the best and as much as he could hold of it, treating his friends, freely ordering bowls of punch, must needs possess means far beyond those of his companions. For the village of Wapping, though there were in it many substantial boat-builders, rope-makers, block-makers, sail-makers, instrument-makers, and others connected with the trade and shipping of the Port of London, was not in those days a rich quarter.

The wealthy London merchants, who had houses at Mile End, Hoxton, Bow, Ham, and even Ratcliffe, never chose Wapping for a country residence; and, indeed, the riverside folk from St. Katherine’s by the Tower as far as Shadwell were, as a whole, a rough, rude, and dishonest people, without knowledge, without morals, without principle, without religion. The mob, however, found not their way to the Long Room of the Red Lion Tavern.

The old man was always called John Burnikel; not Captain Burnikel, as was the common style and title of ancient mariners, nor Mr. Burnikel, as belonged to business men, but plain John Burnikel without any title at all. And so he had been called, I say, during the whole length of time remembered by the oldest inhabitants, except himself, of Wapping, and this was nearly seventy years.

It was a romantic history that the old man had to tell. He was the son of a boat-builder—a Wappineer—that was well known and certain; the business was still conducted by those two grand-nephews. At an early age he had run away to sea; this was also perfectly credible, because all the lads of Wapping who possessed any generous instincts always did run away to sea, or became apprentices on board ship. No one doubted that John Burnikel was an old sailor. He said that he had risen to command an East Indiaman; this may have been true, but the statement wanted confirmation. His manner and habits spoke perhaps of the f’o’ksle rather than the quarter-deck, but, then, there are quarter-decks where the manners are those of the f’o’ksle. However, in the year 1804 nobody cared whether this part of his history was true or not, and at the present moment, ninety years after, it is of still less importance.

On the visit of a stranger, or on any holiday or on any festive occasion, John Burnikel was wont to relate at great length, and with many flourishes and with continually new embroideries, the series of adventures which enabled him to return to England at an early age—not more than five-and-twenty—the possessor of a handsome fortune. It would take too long to relate this history entirely in the old man’s words. Besides, which history—told on which evening—should be selected? Suffice it to say that while it was in progress the company finished one bowl, ordered another, and sometimes finished that while the narrative proceeded. For listening without talking is thirsty work, and a thirsty man must drink or die. And since the punch was paid for by the old man, ’twould be the neglecting of chances and opportunities not to take as much of it as the rest of the company allowed.

The substance of the earlier part of the story was this: John Burnikel was on board the East Indiaman, the Hooghly, bound from the Port of London to Calcutta. She had a goodly company of passengers, and was laden with a miscellaneous cargo. They fell into a hurricane in the Indian Ocean. The ship was dismasted, and lost her rudder and her boats; she drifted helpless for many days, and at last struck on a rock. When, after dangers and difficulties of the most extraordinary kind, John Burnikel found himself on shore at last, he was alone, naked, destitute and helpless on a hostile coast, the people of which he declared were notorious cannibals.

They did not, however, proceed to eat him; on the contrary, they clothed him, fed him, and presently took him up country as a present, presumably, to the kitchen of their King, ‘or, as in their jargon they call him, gentlemen, their Rajah.’

Here he would break off to reflect upon the situation. Every storyteller loves to take advantage of the reflections suggested by a situation. ‘Gentlemen,’ he would say, ‘’tis a melancholy thing to find yourself growing every day fatter and more ready for the spit; even the distinction of being reserved for the private larder of His Majesty could not make me cheerful. What, I ask you, is the idle honour of being served at the table of royalty when one thinks of what you must go through in order to get there? I would compare, gentlemen, in my own mind, that portion of me which might be on the Royal dish—a sirloin or a brisket or saddle—with a leg or a loin of roast pork on our own table; and I would remember that in order for us to get that toothsome loin the animal must first be stuck. ’Twas, I confess, mortifying to reflect that sticking must be undergone.

‘Gentlemen, with the utmost joy I discovered that this Prince was too great and too high-minded to be a cannibal. Children of tender years, indeed, as we take sucking pig, he might welcome at his table, but not a sailor grown up and tough. He received me, on the other hand, with a gracious kindness which I cannot forget; he gave me an important office about his person—that of Hereditary Grand Mixer of the Royal Punch—a most responsible office, with a uniform of red silk, and a turban stuck all over with diamonds. This, gentlemen, is the Court uniform of that country. Here we know not what uniform means for splendour.’

The story at this point varied from day to day. Let us select the version most in use. He rendered some signal service to His Majesty, the nature of which was differently told; in fact, it was impossible to reconcile the various narratives, for he discovered a conspiracy, revealed the conspirators at their work, and saved the King and the Dynasty; or he rescued the King’s daughter from a fierce man-eating tiger; or he captured the kidnappers who were running off with that daughter; or he snatched the whole of the Harem from a consuming fire; or he healed them all of a dangerous sickness by administering tar-water. In fact, John Burnikel had a most lively imagination, and used it freely. Choose, therefore, the kind of service which you think most worthy of a great reward.

‘For this service, Gentlemen, the Great Mogul showed the gratitude of a Christian. He sent for me, and when I fell upon my knees, which is the only way in which His Majesty can be approached, he stepped down from his golden throne and bade me graciously to rise. Then he created me on the spot, a Duke, or a Lord Mayor—I forget which. This done, they gave me a splendid cloak to wear. And then—for the best was yet to come—the Emperor bade me prepare for something unexpected. Ah!’—here he drew a long breath—‘unexpected indeed! With that he led me through the golden halls of his Palace, crowded with dancing girls, till we came to a place where there was a heavy door. “Unlock it,” says the King. So the door was opened, and we went down a few steps till we came to an underground hall. If you’ll believe me, gentlemen, that hall hadn’t need of candles to light it up. It was full of light; it dazzled one’s eyes only to stand there and look around; full of its own light, for it was full of precious stones—heaps of ’em, boxes of ’em, shelves of ’em, strings of ’em; there they were—diamonds, rubies, pearls, emeralds, opals—every kind of precious stone that grows anywhere in the world. Gentlemen, there was a sight! The diamonds came from the Emperor’s own diamond ground—Golconda they call it—where I’ve been. I will tell you some day about Golconda. The rubies were brought by the King’s armies from Burmah. I’ve been to Burmah, and I’ll tell you about the people there some day; cruel torturers they are. The pearls came from Ceylon, where they are got by diving. I’ve been a famous diver myself, and I’ll tell you, if you ask me to-morrow, how I fought the shark under water; you don’t know what a fight is like till you tackle a shark under water, with the conger and the cuttle and the codfish looking on! As for the emeralds, I don’t rightly know how they got there. I have heard of a mountain in South America which is just one great emerald, and at certain times the natives go with hammers and chop off little bits. I’ll go out there next year to see it. However, gentlemen, there we were, the Great Mogul and me, standing in the middle of these treasures. “Jack,” says he, “you shan’t say that the King of India is ungrateful. For the service you have done me, I say—help yourself. Fill your pockets. Carry out all you can!” And I did. Gentlemen, it is seventy years ago and more, and still I could cry only to think that my pockets were not sacks. However, I did pretty well—pretty well; weigh me against any Lord Mayor of London you like, and you would say that I did very well. Better still, I brought these stones home with me. Best of all, I’ve got ’em still. When I want money I take one of my diamonds or a handful of pearls. Aha! You would like to know where I keep these jewels? Trust me; they are in safe keeping—all that’s left of ’em—and that’s plenty—in right, good, safe keeping.’

Was not this a splendid, a romantic story to be told in Whitechapel by a simple old sailor? Nobody believed it, which mattered nothing so long as the punch held out. Yet the old man most certainly did have money, as he showed by his nightly expenditure alone, let alone the fact that for seventy years he had lived among them all at Wapping, and had done no single stroke of work. Among his hearers there sat every night those two grand-nephews of his; they were cousins, I have said, and partners in the boat-building business. They came, moved by natural affection—who would not love an uncle who might be telling the truth, or something like the truth, about these jewels? They also came to learn what the old man might reveal, which would be a clue to finding more; and they came out of jealousy, because each suspected the other of trying to supplant him in the favour of the uncle. They sat, therefore, and endured the story night after night, and endured the company, which was not always of their own rank and station as respectable tradesmen; but still they got nothing for their trouble, because the old man told them no more than he told the rest of the world. Nor did he show the least sign of affection for either. Every evening, when the cousins left the tavern, which was not until the old man had first departed, one would say to the other: ‘Cousin George, our uncle ages; he ages visibly. I greatly fear that he is breaking.’ And the other would reply: ‘Cousin Robert, I greatly fear it, too. Yet it is the way of all flesh.’ It was a time when every event had to be received in a spirit and with words proper to the occasion. ‘We must resign ourselves to the impending blow.’

‘Heaven grant’—the tribute to religion having been duly paid, they became natural again—‘heaven grant that we find the truth about these jewels. The story cannot be true.’

‘Yet how has he lived for seventy years in idleness?’

‘I know not, nor can I so much as surmise.’

‘Consider, cousin. He lays out from eight shillings to ten or even twelve shillings every evening at the Tavern. And there are his meals and his rent besides. Say that he spends twelve shillings a day, or eighty-four shillings a week, which is two hundred and eighteen pounds eight shillings a year. In seventy years this makes the prodigious sum of fifteen thousand two hundred and eighty-eight pounds. Where did he get all that money? Cousin, he has either a secret hoard somewhere, or he has property—houses, perhaps, of which we know nothing.’

‘When he dies I suppose we shall learn. A man cannot have his property buried with him.’

Now, on this night, as the company at the Tavern parted at ten o’clock, instead of shouldering his club and marching off, the old sailor turned to his nephews. ‘Boys,’ he said—he had never called them ‘boys’ before—‘I have something to say. I had better say it at once, because, look you, I think I am getting old, and in a few score years, more or less, it may be too late to say it. Come with me, then, to my poor house in Broad Street.’

The nephews, greatly astonished and marvelling much, followed him. They were going to be told something. What? The truth about the jewels? The nature of the property?

The old man led the way, brandishing his stick, stout and erect. He took them to his house, opened the door, closed it and barred it; got his tinder-box, and obtained a light for a thick ship’s tallow candle. Then he barred the window-shutter. His nephews looked round the room. It was the first time they had stood within those walls. There was a table; there was an armchair, a high armchair in which one could sit protected from the draughts by the fireside; there was a tobacco-box, with two or three churchwarden pipes; there was a cupboard with plates. A kettle was on one side of the hob, and a gridiron on the other. There was no other furniture in the room. But the door and the window-shutters were both of oak, thick and massive. And on the wall were hung a cutlass and a brace of pistols.

‘Wait here a bit,’ said the old man. He took the candle and carried it into the other room, leaving them in the dark. After a few minutes he returned, bearing a small canvas sack.

‘Nephews,’ he said, laying the bag on the table, and keeping both hands upon it, ‘you come every night to the Red Lion in hopes of finding out something about my property. It is your inheritance; why shouldn’t you come? Sometimes you think it is much, then your spirits rise. Sometimes you think it is little, then your spirits sink. When I begin to talk you prick up your ears; but you never hear anything. Then you go home and you wonder how long the old man will last, eh? and how much money he has got, eh? and what he will do with it, eh? Well, now, you shall have your curiosity satisfied.’

‘Sir,’ said one of the nephews, ‘our spirits may well sink at the thought of your falling into poverty.’

‘And,’ said the other, ‘they may well be expected to rise at the thought of your prosperity.’

‘I have told you many stories of travel and of profit. Sometimes you believe, in which case you show signs of satisfaction. Sometimes you look glum when you think that you are wasting your evenings.’

‘Oh, sir,’ said one of the nephews, ‘sure one cannot waste one’s time in such good and improving company as yourself.’

‘We come,’ said the other, ‘for instruction. Your talk is more instructive than any book of travel.’

‘The time has now arrived’—the old man paid no attention to these fond assurances—‘to tell you what I have, and to show you what you will have. I am now grown old, so old that I must expect before many years are over’—he was already, as you have seen, ninety-four—‘to die’—he sighed heavily—‘and to give my substance to those who come after. Look you! I bear no manner of affection to you. When a man gets to ninety, he cares no longer about anything but himself. That is the beauty and excellence of being old. Then a man gets everything for himself, no sharing, no giving. I shall give you nothing—not even if you are bankrupt—in my lifetime. But I mean not to defraud my heirs. You shall see, therefore, all I have got. Many a rich merchant living in his great house would be glad to change places with you when I am gone—many a merchant? All the merchants of London Town!’

He took up the bag. It was a long narrow bag of brown canvas, quite two feet long, and shaped like a purse of the period.

I know not what they expected, but at the sight of the treasure which he poured out upon the table these two respectable boat-builders gasped; they looked on with amazement unspeakable, with open mouths, with starting eyes, with flaming cheeks, with quivering hands and trembling knees. They could not look at each other; they dared not speak. It was like the opening of the gates of Paradise, with a full view of the interior arrangements.

They had never dreamed of such a sight. Five hundred pounds all in gold would have seemed to these worthy tradesmen a treasure, five thousand pounds great wealth, ten thousand pounds an inexhaustible sum, for this old man poured out upon the table a pile, not of guineas, but of precious stones. Why, then, his stories about the countless treasures of the Great Mogul must be true. There they were—diamonds, emeralds, rubies, pearls, all the stones which he described, hundreds of them, thousands of them; there were precious stones, large, splendid, worth immense sums, with smaller ones, with strings of pearls, enough to fill quart pots. And now they understood what was meant by all those stories concerning precious stones over which they had grown as incredulous as Didymus.

The old man bent over his heap and ran his fingers into it, and caught a handful and dropped it back again. ‘See my beauties!’ he cried. ‘Look at the colours; the sunshine in them and the green and the red. Saw you ever the like? Oh, if a man could but live long enough to work through this heap! Why, ’tis seventy years since I first came home, with this bag in my hand for all my fortune, and there’s no difference in it yet. It grows no less; I sometimes think it grows bigger. No man, live as long as he could wish, would work through this heap.’

‘May we humbly ask, sir,’ said one of them, taking heart, ‘how much money is represented by this bag of jewels?’

‘I know not. Take this stone; ’tis a ruby. Look at it, weigh it; I sold one like it three months ago for fifty pounds. There are hundreds bigger. Well’—he began to put the stones back into the bag—‘I have shown these treasures to you because the time will come—not yet, I hope—it must come, I suppose’—he spoke as if there was still a chance of an exception being made in his favour—‘when I must give the bag to you two and go away. I shall have to go aboard a strange ship and join a strange company, as bo’s’n, maybe, or able seaman, or cook—who knows?—and sail away in strange waters on a new cruise where there are no charts.’

‘Not for many years,’ murmured one of the nephews fervently.

‘Not if our prayers, our daily prayers, can keep you here!’ added the other, clasping his hands.

‘Thank ye,’ said John Burnikel, tying up his bag.

‘I trust, sir,’ said one of the nephews, ‘that you keep this precious treasure in a safe place. A whisper, a suspicion, would fly through Wapping like wild-fire, and you would be robbed and murdered.’

‘Devil a whisper will there be,’ said John. ‘You won’t start a whisper, that’s certain. And I won’t. And as for the place where I keep it, no one will see me put it there, and no one would think of looking there. And now, nephews, good-night. Say nothing—but of course you will not—and be as patient as you can. I believe you will have to wait a dozen years or so before you get the bag.’

They stepped out into the street, and heard him, to their satisfaction, bolting and barring the door behind them.

‘Cousin,’ said one, ‘this has been a wonderful evening. Who could have believed it? We are now rich men—oh, rich beyond our dreams! We can leave Wapping, and court the society of the Great.’

‘Unless his bag is stolen, which may happen. I tremble only to think of keeping such a treasure in such a mean little cottage among all these rogues and villains! It ought to be in a strong-room such as merchants use.’

‘I think—I fear—we shall not have to wait long. Methinks the old man’s voice is breaking. He seemed feebler to-night than I remember to have seen him. Ninety-four is a great, a very great, age.’

‘Ah! he may not have many weeks—many days—to live. His voice, I also observed, was weak. It is a happiness, cousin, to reflect that an uncle who now entertains a disposition of so much justice towards his nephews, can hardly fail of Abraham’s bosom.’

This anxiety proved prophetic. Exactly a week afterwards John Burnikel did not appear at the tavern at six o’clock, nor at half-past six. The nephews hurried round to Broad Street. The door was open; there was no one in the front-room. In the room behind they found their uncle lying on his bed, his face drawn as with pain, and with the gray look which often falls upon those who are about to die.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I thought you wouldn’t be long. Come in, boys. Shut the door and come in. I’ve had a kind of fit; my legs don’t seem right. Get me a drink; the barrel of beer is in the other room. I shall be better to-morrow—much better.’ He drank a copious draught of beer, which refreshed him. He tried to sit up, but could not. It was a day in August, when it gets dusk about eight. At nightfall they found the tinder-box and got a light, and sat down one on each side of the bed.

So they sat all night till three in the morning without saying a word to each other. The old man seemed sleeping. At daybreak he began to murmur, rambling in his speech.

‘The man’s mad. He won’t know; he won’t find out. He will die mad. No one will know—no one will know. Boys’—he opened his eyes—‘you both know where the bag is hidden away. I think this is the end. Well, Eve left you rich—half as rich, each of you, as myself.’ He closed his eyes. Presently one of the watchers bent over him.

‘Cousin,’ he said, ‘the breath has gone out of the body. Our excellent, wealthy uncle is no more. Nothing remains but to weep for him.’

‘Let us find the bag and divide the property,’ said the other, ‘before we call in the neighbours.’

‘It is our sorrowful duty to do so, as his heirs, and quickly, before the thing gets wind.’

It was the custom to construct at the head of the great wooden bed of the period a secret box, drawer, or repository. Everybody knew the secret place at the head of the bed. It was an open secret, yet it was commonly used in every house for the concealment, as in a place of perfect safety, of the silver and the valuables.

They searched in this receptacle. The bag was not there.

‘It is in this room, because he brought it out of this room. Let us look again.’

Again they searched every corner and cranny for the secret hiding-place. It was not there. There might be some other hiding-place in the bed. It could only be at the head. They tapped and hammered. In vain. Was it on the head of the bed? They climbed up and looked. No; it was not there. Was it under the bed? They looked, but it was not there. Could it be in the mattress? in the feather-bed? in the bolster? under the bolster? under the mattress? They lifted the dead man on to the floor, and they examined those places and other constituent portions of the bed. In vain. They lifted their great-uncle back again to the bed, and gazed at each other with anxious eyes.

‘It must be in this room,’ they repeated. ‘He brought it from this room; he took it back.’

They looked round. There was a three-legged stool leaning against the wall, because one of its legs was broken off. There was a sea-chest in the corner—a big, heavy box with a lock, and bound strongly with iron. Ah! the sea-chest. They dragged it out and threw open the lid. Within was a curious collection of miscellaneous property: a big silver watch, a knife, a dirk, an ugly Malay creese, an old pistol, a bo’s’n’s whistle, a mariner’s compass, a bundle of charts, a few trifles in carved wood from India, two or three broken figures from India, a dead flying-fish, together with a bundle of decayed or decaying clothes, which filled up the bottom of the chest. They pulled everything out with eager haste, each man looking jealously at the other for fear he should secretly convey the bag into his own pockets. Everything lay on the floor, and the bag was not in the chest. It was divided into two compartments, a larger and a smaller. They held it up to the light. No, there was nothing in the chest. They looked again about the room. There was a cupboard in the wall. Both discovered it at the same moment and rushed at it. They threw open the door. It was a spacious cupboard; but there was nothing in it at all. Old John Burnikel had never used that cupboard.

‘Let us lift the hearthstone,’ said one of them. Everybody knows that the hearthstone was often the family bank where money was stowed away for safety when there was no secret hiding-place at the head of the bed. And the family continued to put faith in the hearthstone long after the secret was perfectly well known to those persons who break in and steal.

They did lift the hearthstone. Nothing was under it. The earth had never been disturbed since the stone was laid.

Their faces were now haggard. Could the bag be stolen?

They then prized up the boards of the floor; they tore down the wainscoting; they searched the little back-yard for signs of recent disturbance; they remembered that there were two rooms upstairs; they were empty and unfurnished, but they tore up the boards; they searched in the roof; they searched in the chimneys. Heavens! there was no sign of the bag anywhere. Where was it?—where was it? All that day they searched. The next day—which was indecent in haste—they buried the old man, neither of them attending the funeral for fear of the bag being found in their absence. And then they began again. They wrecked the house; they reduced it to its bare walls of brick; they pulled the bed to pieces; they left, as they thought, nothing unturned. But the bag was not in the house.

Then they began to think that, while the old man lay unconscious, the door open, the bag might have been stolen. But it must have been hidden away, and nobody knew that it was there, or had thought of it——

Then another suspicion entered the heads of both at the same moment. One of them, when it had taken shape with the firm outline of moral certainty, put it into words:

‘His last words, George—his dying words—were: “You know where I’ve put the bag”; and he looked at you—at you. What did he look at you for? Because you know where he put the bag.’

‘He looked at you, Robert, not at me. Why? Because he had told you where it was. You wormed his secret out of him.’

‘And now you try to turn it off on me. You’ve taken the bag; you’ve got it somewhere; you think to take it all for yourself.’

‘This impudence passes everything. Do you think I am simple enough not to see through this villainy? ’Tis you—you—you who have taken the bag.’

It is sad to relate that these recriminations became more and more bitter; that the two boat-builders of Wapping—churchwardens, jurymen, most respectable and responsible persons, partners and cousins—did, in the agony of their disappointment, call each other rogue, thief, villain; that they proceeded, being beyond and beside themselves with bitterness, to shake their fists at each other; that they next—it was a fighting age—fell upon and mauled each other; that they only desisted when exhaustion, not satisfaction, compelled them to separate; and that they parted with threats, curses, and promises of Newgate Gaol and the Condemned Cell.

To conclude, the bag could not be found. The agonies endured by those two disappointed men were terrible. To have these treasures just shown to them, dangled before them, and then withdrawn! Heard one ever the like? To conclude, they dissolved partnership. One of them left Wapping altogether, to enjoy at a distance, the other said, his ill-gotten wealth; the other remained to conceal, the first said, the fact of his stolen property. And as for the few remaining goods of John Burnikel—the table, the bed, and the household gear—they were conveyed to the boat-builder’s house, and after one more final search the old man’s cottage in Broad Street was abandoned.

But the cousins were wrong. Neither of them had the bag, and it remained undiscovered. You shall see how, in the course of this history, it came to be discovered.