Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/135

 let me off! and I will acknowledge all.' She then immediately confessed—would you believe it?—that the curate’s son had robbed Danna, and she had shared the money with him.

"Now, tell me, was it best that the old Frenchman should die of starvation, or that the rascally thief of a woman, who had induced the curate’s son to commit the robbery, should be punished, as a warning to others? If such severe punishments were not used among them, we should not sleep safe in our beds. How well is it known that they have with pickaxes opened a roof, and thrown in lighted straw to suffocate people, that they might rob in security.

"I recollect once, when Captain Y. was here, I was showing him the garden; and, seeing some lettuces which were badly planted, he said to me, 'That’s not the way to plant lettuces: they should be so and so.'—'Yes,' I replied, 'I have told the gardener so a hundred times, and he will never listen to me.'—'Oh! oh!' said he, 'won’t he? Let me bring a boatswain’s mate to him, and I'll soon see whether he will or not.'—'You are very good,' was my answer; 'but then I should lose your company for half a day, and I had rather have no lettuces than do that.

"When I first came to this country, you know perfectly well that I never behaved otherwise than with the greatest kindness to servants. You ask me