Free Sherlock Holmes In Montague Street Volume 2 by David Marcum

though some of his co-directors learnt the taste of penal servitude. But he was beggared, and lived, as it were, a mere pensioner in his wife’s house. Here his brutality increased to a frightful extent, till his wife, already broken in health in consequence, went in constant fear of her life, and Miss Foster passed a life of weeping misery. All her friends’ entreaties, however, could not persuade Mrs. Sneathy to obtain a legal separation from her husband. She clung to him with the excuse - for it was no more - that she hoped to win him to kindness by submission, and with a pathetic infatuation that seemed to increase as her bodily strength diminished.
    Henry and Robert, as may be supposed, were anything but silent in these circumstances. Indeed, they broke out violently again and again, and more than once went near permanently injuring their worthy father-in-law. Once especially, when Sneathy, absolutely without provocation, made a motion to strike his wife in their presence, there was a fearful scene. The two sprang at him like wild beasts, knocked him down and dragged him to the balcony with the intention of throwing him out of the window. But Mrs. Sneathy impeded them, hysterically imploring them to desist.
    â€œIf you lift your hand to my mother,” roared Henry, gripping Sneathy by the throat till his fat face turned blue, and banging his head against the wall, “if you lift your hand to my mother again I’ll chop it off - I will! I’ll chop it off and drive it down your throat!”
    â€œWe’ll do worse,” said Robert, white and frantic with passion, “we’ll hang you - hang you to the door! You’re a proved liar and thief, and you’re worse than a common murderer. I’d hang you to the front door for two-pence!”
    For a few days Sneathy was comparatively quiet, cowed by their violence. Then he took to venting redoubled spite on his unfortunate wife, always in the absence of her sons, well aware that she would never inform them. On their part, finding him apparently better behaved in consequence of their attack, they thought to maintain his wholesome terror, and scarcely passed him without a menace, taking a fiendish delight in repeating the threats they had used during the scene, by way of keeping it present to his mind.
    â€œTake care of your hands, sir,” they would say. “Keep them to yourself, or, by George, we’ll take ’em off with a billhook!”
    But his revenge for all this Sneathy took unobserved on their mother. Truly a miserable household.
    Soon, however, the brothers left home, and went to London by way of looking for a profession. Henry began a belated study of medicine, and Robert made a pretence of reading for the bar. Indeed, their departure was as much as anything a consequence of the earnest entreaty of their sister, who saw that their presence at home was an exasperation to Sneathy, and aggravated her mother’s secret sufferings. They went, therefore; but at Ranworth things became worse.
    Little was allowed to be known outside the house, but it was broadly said that Mr. Sneathy’s behavior had now become outrageous beyond description. Servants left faster than new ones could be found, and gave their late employer the character of a raving maniac. Once, indeed, he committed himself in the village, attacking with his walking-stick an inoffensive tradesman who had accidentally brushed against him, and immediately running home. This assault had to be compounded for by a payment of fifty pounds. And then Henry and Robert Foster received a most urgent letter from their sister requesting their immediate presence at home.
    They went at once, of course, and the servants’ account of what occurred was this. When the brothers arrived Mr. Sneathy had just left the house. The brothers were shut up with their mother and sister for about a quarter of an hour, and then left them and came out to the stable yard together. The