Mark Lemon

“ I always made it a rule to have a screen placed before my sideboard as soon as dessert was put upon the table; for in the times to which I allude it was the fashion to clear the cloth, and place the decanters, finger-glasses, d’oyleys, and wines (glasses) on the well-polished mahogany. By having my screen, I could arrange my relays of glasses and decanters, my tooth-picks, my snuff-box, and many other matters too numerous to mention, besides being always at my post to keep up the festivity of the evening, and preserve our family character for hospitality. ”

“ He went through this examination on the night of my story, and all being perfectly satisfactory, my uncle’s friend raked the coals well together in the grate, extinguished his candle, and by the light of the fire got into bed. Many persons cannot sleep in a strange bed, and my uncle’s friend was one, so he lay awake for some time, looking at an eight-day clock in one corner of his room. ”

“ On his way to Doncaster with a friend, he stopped at an inn where he was known, and invariably slept on his way down, and was annoyed to find that all the other decent rooms were occupied by persons who, like himself, were on their way to the races. ”

“ Assistance soon arrived, and from the interior of the clock-case (from which the weights and pendulum had been removed) , a well-known diminutive Doncaster tout was dragged to light, the man afterwards confessing that he knew my Uncle Zachary always slept in this particular room at race-time, and that he was sure to carry a large sum of money with him. The incensed host and his household consigned the miserable little culprit to the horse-trough for nearly a quarter of an hour, and then left him to dry in the village cage. ”

“ Now my honoured forebear was not the man to be robbed without a struggle, and calculating upon such a contingency as the present he always carried a short bludgeon under the seat of his gig, being of opinion that a pistol might hang fire, or miss its mark, and then there would be an end of his power of resistance. ”

“ I believe part of what I am about to say has been in print, but not the entire story as I am about to tell it, and as I heard it behind my screen.
In one of the northern counties lived, about fifty years from this time, a roaring set of farmers, corn dealers, and wool buyers, and the worst of the set was a man we will call Robinson. There was no mischief that Robinson had not indulged in, and so had his father before him. They bought wool and corn, and farmed a few acres, employing some five or six men ”

“ What follows will not appear surprising with so desperate a man. Robinson had made a visit to London to execute a long conceived project to enrich himself at the expense of one of the gambling houses. ”

“ The book was brought in, and Sir Thomas read as follows:
“Here’s an account of two robberies more than a hundred years ago.
ON Tuesday night [Jan. 5, 1720,] two Highwaymen robb’d two Gentlemens Coaches over against the Duke of Devonshire’s House in Piccadilly; and on Thursday three Foot Pads stopp’d a Chair much about the same Place, and having mastered the two Chairmen, they plunder’d the Gentleman who was in it of his Money, Watch, and Sword. ”