Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-11-23
BEECHENBROOK BOY

I will say to you right at the outset that was "the boy at Beechenbrook." :"
 Beechenbrook was and is yet great house few miles outside of Manches- ter. At the time of my story 1t was occupied by the man who built it, q large manufacturer of the famous manufacturing town. 1t stood in the middle of thirty acres of ground, and house, barns, lawns and gardens re- quired the services of about fifteen servants.
 In the bookstore in which I was en- ployed in London l was said to have excellent taste and Judgment In the arrangement of country libraries, even though I was only a boy of sixteen, and a few weeks after the owner of Beechenbrook had given us an order l was sent up there to put away the volumes.
 On the day I arrived the owners wife and daughter started for Scot himself departed for Paris to attend a certain business. All the servants about the place except the head gar dener, two grooms ana two women in the kitchen were given leave from their employer to go to the station, two miles away. They were not long gone when passing through the hall saw three masked men trying to open tue plate room door. crept back to the hall, across into the drawing room, and at the far end of the big room raised the window and stepped to the ground.
 Once out made my way to the sta- bles, but there a surprise awaited me- I found a horse hitched to cart and the gardener and head groom standing beside the vehicle, Had the two men not had their backs to me and been so earnestly engaged in conversation they must have seen and heard my ap proach.
 had my lips parted to speak, when I suspected something wrong. The plunder was to be carried off in the cart, and the three men servants were in league with the robbers. It came to me like flash and in time to save myself l drew back and wondered what I should do.
 Queerly enough, was more upset at the thought of the two mile run in the rain and darkness to town than in returning to the house and facing the robbers. was out of the house and could hide in safety till morning, but that idea never came to me.
 was all for preventing the rob- bery, and pretty soon skulked back to tue open window. In so doing I saw the outside door of the dining room ajar. The groom had let the robbers in at that door, and the dis tance from the door to the open ditch was only fifteen feet.
 When I had re-entered the house and crept back to the door leading in- to the dining room the fellows had given up trying to open the plate room door with a key and were working at it with iron bars. Five minutes later they had it open, and then the groom passed out piece after piece, while the robbers deposited them in their sacks.
 Everything was of solid silver, and to save space nearly every piece was bent or broken by hand or foot. The trio worked in a hurry and at the end of half an hour the room was empty, and i've sacks were full.
 had been watching everything in 8 helpless way, having no plan and no hope, and it was only when the men shouldered the sacks to carry them out that made move.
 determined to try the effect of a 0n0 ~H tfro la cf NF ct outdoors I fired the pistol into the sack on his back and shouted at the top of my voice. 1t was the groom who had slipped upstairs and locked me in, and, though he may not have recognized my voice as I shouted, the sudden alarm caused greater panic than could have hoped for.
 All three men started to run. The groom threw down his sack, but the robbers clung to theirs. They all knew about the ditch, but in the darkness and confusion they made right for 1t and tumbled in one after another. As direction of the stables
 Both cut the two men there so close that they took to their heels, and thus with three shots and four or i've yelis I had scared off whole gang had even done better. In falling into the ditch the three fellows were badly knocked about, and when it came to climbing out they couldn't do it. es- pecially as I was there with my pistol in hand and threatened to shoot the first man who showed his head.
 The row had awakened the women, and when they came to know what had happened they took the horse and cart and went for the police, while continued to stand guard. Tn an hour we had the men out and handcuffed. and next day the other two were ar rested twenty miles away.
 The two strangers were professionals and desperate men, and but for the fact that one had an arm broken and the other leg by the fall into the ditch they could not have been held there so easily.
 They got fifteen years apiece in pris on, while the others were let off with ,svY% T ,rx fr,