There’s an ale-house called “The Willing Mind,” which stands
on the road between Blandford and Salisbury, and it was there that night
I engaged a bed. I was sitting alone in the tap-room just about closing
time, when the innkeeper—Allen his name was—came beside me and began
yarning about the neighbours. He was a man that liked to talk and to
have some one to listen to his talk, so I sat there smoking and drinking
a mug of ale which he had stood me; and I took no great interest in what
he said until he began to talk (as the devil would have it) about the
riches of Mannering Hall. “Meaning the large house on the right before I came to the village?”
said I. “The one that stands in its own park?”

“Exactly,” said he—and I am giving all our talk so that you may know
that I am telling you the truth and hiding nothing. “The long white
house with the pillars,” said he. “At the side of the Blandford Road.”

Now I had looked at it as I passed, and it had crossed my mind, as such
thoughts will, that it was a very easy house to get into with that great
row of ground windows and glass doors. I had put the thought away from
me, and now here was this landlord bringing it back with his talk about
the riches within. I said nothing, but I listened, and as luck would
have it, he would always come back to this one subject. “He was a miser young, so you can think what he is now in his age,” said
he. “Well, he’s had some good out of his money.”

“What good can he have had if he does not spend it?” said I. “Well, it bought him the prettiest wife in England, and that was some
good that he got out of it. She thought she would have the spending of
it, but she knows the difference now.”

“Who was she then?” I asked, just for the sake of something to say. “She was nobody at all until the old Lord made her his Lady,” said he. “She came from up London way, and some said that she had been on the
stage there, but nobody knew. The old Lord was away for a year, and when
he came home he brought a young wife back with him, and there she has
been ever since. Stephens, the butler, did tell me once that she was the
light of the house when fust she came, but what with her husband’s mean
and aggravatin’ way, and what with her loneliness—for he hates to see a
visitor within his doors; and what with his bitter words—for he has a
tongue like a hornet’s sting, her life all went out of her, and she
became a white, silent creature, moping about the country lanes. Some
say that she loved another man, and that it was just the riches of the
old Lord which tempted her to be false to her lover, and that now she is
eating her heart out because she has lost the one without being any
nearer to the other, for she might be the poorest woman in the parish
for all the money that she has the handling of.”

Well, sir, you can imagine that it did not interest me very much to hear
about the quarrels between a Lord and a Lady. What did it matter to me
if she hated the sound of his voice, or if he put every indignity upon
her in the hope of breaking her spirit, and spoke to her as he would
never have dared to speak to one of his servants? The landlord told me
of these things, and of many more like them, but they passed out of my
mind, for they were no concern of mine. But what I did want to hear was
the form in which Lord Mannering kept his riches. Title-deeds and stock
certificates are but paper, and more danger than profit to the man who
takes them. But metal and stones are worth a risk. And then, as if he
were answering my very thoughts, the landlord told me of Lord
Mannering’s great collection of gold medals, that it was the most
valuable in the world, and that it was reckoned that if they were put
into a sack the strongest man in the parish would not be able to raise
them. Then his wife called him, and he and I went to our beds. I am not arguing to make out a case for myself, but I beg you, sir, to
bear all the facts in your mind, and to ask yourself whether a man could
be more sorely tempted than I was. I make bold to say that there are few
who could have held out against it. There I lay on my bed that night, a
desperate man without hope or work, and with my last shilling in my
pocket. I had tried to be honest, and honest folk had turned their backs
upon me. They taunted me for theft; and yet they pushed me towards it. I
was caught in the stream and could not get out. And then it was such a
chance: the great house all lined with windows, the golden medals which
could so easily be melted down. It was like putting a loaf before a
starving man and expecting him not to eat it. I fought against it for a
time, but it was no use. At last I sat up on the side of my bed, and I
swore that that night I should either be a rich man and able to give up
crime for ever, or that the irons should be on my wrists once more. Then
I slipped on my clothes, and, having put a shilling on the table—for the
landlord had treated me well, and I did not wish to cheat him—I passed
out through the window into the garden of the inn. There was a high wall round this garden, and I had a job to get over it,
but once on the other side it was all plain sailing. I did not meet a
soul upon the road, and the iron gate of the avenue was open. No one was
moving at the lodge. The moon was shining, and I could see the great
house glimmering white through an archway of trees. I walked up it for a
quarter of a mile or so, until I was at the edge of the drive, where it
ended in a broad, gravelled space before the main door. There I stood in
the shadow and looked at the long building, with a full moon shining in
every window and silvering the high stone front. I crouched there for
some time, and I wondered where I should find the easiest entrance. The
corner window of the side seemed to be the one which was least
overlooked, and a screen of ivy hung heavily over it. My best chance was
evidently there. I worked my way under the trees to the back of the
house, and then crept along in the black shadow of the building. A dog
barked and rattled his chain, but I stood waiting until he was quiet,
and then I stole on once more until I came to the window which I had
chosen. It is astonishing how careless they are in the country, in places far
removed from large towns, where the thought of burglars never enters
their heads. I call it setting temptation in a poor man’s way when he
puts his hand, meaning no harm, upon a door, and finds it swing open
before him. In this case it was not so bad as that, but the window was
merely fastened with the ordinary catch, which I opened with a push from
the blade of my knife. I pulled up the window as quickly as possible,
and then I thrust the knife through the slit in the shutter and prized
it open. They were folding shutters, and I shoved them before me and
walked into the room. “Good evening, sir! You are very welcome!” said a voice. I’ve had some starts in my life, but never one to come up to that one.