COURAGE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 937, 26 June 1877, Page 3

COURAGE.

Mr Nodwinkum lives in au isolated dwelling on Nelson street. Being a prudent man Mr Nodwinkum sleeps with a pistol close at hand, with which to perforate a scoundrel whomay find anything worth carrying off in the mansion. About 2 o'clock the nthe*' morning he was awakened by a noise. As soon as he got his senses aroused he determined from the sound that the noise was on the floor below. Then he awakened his wife by shaking her. ' What's the matter ?' she asked, starting

up. 'Sh !' whispered her husband. ' There's burglars in the house.'

' What' she gasped. ' Can't you keep still,' he demanded in a hissing whisper. ' They'll be in here on us, a cuttia' our throats afore you know it ' The frightened woman held her breath. ' Now, I'll get up, au' get my pistol, an' go up in the attic,' he explained, 'and stand at the winder, an' you go downstairs an' throw over something, an' when they hear the noise they'll run out inter the yard, an' I'll just pepper 'em as they come out.'

The woman was so overcome by the bril liancy of this project that she could not reply. 'Do you bear me ?' he hissed. ' Yes, but Joseph, I dasn'tgo down there,' she whispered back : ' they'd kill me.' ' Don't be a fo >l, I tell you, he answered, impatiently. ' What you got to be 'fraid of, I'd like to know. You j"st make a noise on the stairs, an' they'll be mighty glad to scatter out. How'd they know but forty men were after them ?' Still she hesitated. ' You go or I'll know the reason of it,' he said, between his clenched teeth.

The unhappy woman prepared to obey, and he having secured his pistol slipped noiselessly up the garret stairs to the window, where taking his f tand with the pistol, he peered into the yard.

Mrs Nodwinknm, with her heart almost at a standstill, felt her way out to the head of the stairs leading down to the next floor, and part way down them, trembling in every joint, and then fo.ariug to proceed further, she threw the wash-pitcher which she had. brought with her, to the floor be low, and under cover of the crash she flew back to the bedroom. Mr Nod wink nm heard the noise and put the pistol out of the window, and shut his eyes and pulled at the tricger. But; there was no explosion. Again he snapped the hammer, but with the same result. He looked out, but there was no one in sight, and after w r aiting a moment, in a state of dreadful uncertainty as to whether the marauders had fled, or consumed his wife and were now laying for him, he crawled slowly an 1 softly down the stairs, the blood gathering at the top of his head, and every hair almost lifting its ownself out by the roots. Regaining his room, his wife took the precaution to assure him that she had made an active search, but had found no one. Whereupon Mr Nodwinkum took courage to light the lamp, and examine the pistol which he discovered was unloaded. Take it all in all it was a very narraw escape al< around, and as there was no evidence in the mcrning to show that house had been entered we are forced to the conclusion already reached by Mr Nokwinkum, and imparted to his wife, viz. : " That the miserable thieves knew he was no man to trifle with."