The Lock Picker

Henry's father was very mean, especially when he was drunk, which he often was since the death of Henry's mother.

"You'll never amount to anything! All you do is eat my food and take up space, why don't you work like your brothers?" Henry's father would shout.

Henry was very sad, all he desired was his father's affection and to be treated as well as his brothers, who were older and had jobs at the brickworks.

One day Henry overheard his oldest brother Micky talking to an odd looking fellow with a long twirly moustache and a strange accent, behind the flour mill where they thought they were alone.

"So, you will pick the lock, and my cousins will do the rest" said the stranger in his strange voice.

"Aye, just see that you're there at the appointed time, gypsy, for we shall have us the better of the foreman and no more work for pittance while he lazes in his high up office eating and drinking" replied Micky.

Hearing this, Henry, who was quick of wit, though meek, formed a cunning plan.

"If I can be the one to pick the lock, then surely my father will favour me, and it'll be seen that I am of some account", Henry thought to himself. With this in mind, the boy set about putting his plan into action, and by the appointed time, that very evening, all was prepared.

"It is an ill fate, that the moon should shine so brightly when dark deeds call for low light, but it cannot be mended", muttered Micky, drawing his long coat up around him as he stole furtively through the empty backstreets.

"This path I walk is so infernally familiar" he thought to himself "I could swear I step in my own bootprints, worn into the very cobbles. Curse that workyard and thrice cursed be the foreman, scoundrel that he is, gathering his rent off the backs of we honest working men!"

In such wise the elder brother came to the brickworks, by the unguarded labourer's entrance. His mind was already on the money contained in the strongbox, which the gypsy man had sworn his brethren could carry clear, and break open, once access were obtained.

Coming to the door, Micky unrolled his oiled pigskin tool pouch, and set to the trade his father had taught him in secret, and which he had plied for many years on the unsuspecting townsfolk, for had his father not said "what a man can take and keep for hisself and his kin, that is his property, for by no more just right that this do the landlords and factory owners extract their rents from the sweat of our backs".

For twenty minutes under the silver light of the moon, Micky worked his tools, feeling out the lock, learning its mechanism. "She'll stand as a lady prim and proper, when first ye get to a good lock, ye must seduce her, lad. A lock is a Lady of the Night, and this pick right here is your wallet, once I've schooled ye in the use of it".

But time dragged on, and the lock, she would not yield.

Growing impatient, cursing his father for his poor teaching, cursing the locksmith's apprentice who'd tipped him about the lock being easy, cursing the gypsy for encouraging this whole scheme and cursing God for the bright moonlight, Micky worked more and more frantically, now with palms sweaty, his tool slipping in his fingers. "Enough of this, the only box I shall have of this is of concrete and iron bars, at the Old Bailey!" And with that Micky turned to flee, barreling right into the night guard on his rounds, whose approach he had not heard, so ensnared was he in his battle with the lock.

"Woahh there laddy, what be his then, mischief I'll warrant" cried the guard. "Micky Miller, I should have known it, and yes, what's this!? Your old grandmother's hairpin which you're off to deliver to her in the dead of night at t' back of my brickyard? Ye can tell it t' Bailiff, sonny!" And struggle and flail though he might, Micky was caught, for the Bailiff was a large man and a carnival wrestler in his younger days.

The very next morning, for it was a Saturday and the day of the court, Bailiff, Magistrate and all who could press into the old courthouse heard Micky's story. They listened to the pleading on Micky's behalf by his father, at which there was hissing and cries of "shame!". Then they listened to the pleading for the crown and the brickyard owner by the fat lawyer, with many a laugh and even a clap at his clever words and references to literary figures that none there had read of, but desiring good report unearned, all feigned knowledge of, as men are apt.

The gypsy and his kin were hunted down and found hiding in the old Abbey on the hill. They were given twenty lashes each, their gold teeth taken as a fine, and they were sent forthwith from the boundaries of the township, never to cross over again on pain of death.

The Magistrate ruled that Micky would work his sentence in hard labour at the brickyard, but that the father's tongue was forfeit, for it was of him that the boy had learned such foul deeds. In the midst of the father's piteous pleading, the town locksmith stepped forth from the gathered crowd, declaring;

"And what of me? My store was robbed as well, and it was by these same villains or I'm a nun, what of my injury?"

At this, Henry, who had stood dutifully at his place by his father, raised his hand.

"What is it boy, are ye to tell us now that ye are as crooked as your brother and father?" Intoned the Magistrate.

Henry cleared his throat, uneasy before the stares of the townspeople and of the Magistrate and Bailiff, who were imposing in their finery and grey wigs and gold chains, sitting in their high chairs. Nevertheless, gathering his courage, Henry spoke;

"Begging your pardon, your honour, but it's true that I did steal into the locksmith's shop, though I took only what I came for and left payment" turning to the locksmith whose bushy moustaches bristled with shock "you'll find it under your counter, sir, with the other till money, which I did not touch. T'was all the pennies I've saved over my life from carrying letters and sweeping chimneys, but I believe it met the price of the lock".

The Magistrate furrowed his brow, leaning down over the great oak bench, high up from his throne of judgment, looking down at little Henry "The lock, lad? You robbed the locksmith's store for a lock?"

Henry shook his head "begging your pardon once again, sir, not robbed, for I did pay. But, y'see sir, I'd heard the stranger talking to Micky, and I thought, as it were, that if I should pick the lock and not my brother, my father would treat me kindly, for that's all I desire. So, I went to the locksmith's and I picked out the very finest lock, sir, paid for it in full, and I switched it with the one at the brickworks, which was old and rusty."

At this, a great roar of laughter went up from the crowd, the magistrate even smiled, though Micky's face grew red with rage.

"Young man, you're a credit to your family, the only one to be found here this day. For your innocence and your good deed, though not intentioned, your father's tongue shall be spared, as he raised you and your brother both. Though, I wager he shall employ it more gently with thee in future".

At which the father nodded energetically "Right you are m'lord! I repent of my poor treatment of my boys, whose mother God rest her passed away two years hence, and I repent of the bottle!" And he picked Henry up and carried him from the courthouse on his shoulders, with many a pat and a "jolly good lad!" from the townsfolk, and though not all of them lived happily ever after, Henry at any rate had an easier time of it.

The End.