Charles Vaut and Henry Steele, two of the assigned servants of Mr. George Furber, worked in the field all day on Saturday, April 24th, 1841, and were seen in the kitchen at eight o'clock at night. On the following Sunday evening the Rev. John Hill Garvan, residing at Hull Hill, four miles from Maitland, was sitting at tea just after sunset, when two men came to the door, presented their guns at him, and said, "Don't stir." Mrs. Garvan was so much alarmed that she nearly fainted, and Mr. Garvan asked that she might be allowed to retire to the bedroom. "Sit still," cried the robber, "or I'll blow your brains out and put your wife on the fire." Mr. Garvan then struck the smaller man, Vaut, who was nearest to him, and he snapped his gun at the minister, but it missed fire. The bigger man then ordered Mrs. Garvan to "go and sit on the fire." "Oh, don't, pray don't, make me sit on the fire," cried the poor woman, but the ruffian took her by the shoulders and forced her back on to the burning logs. At that moment a dray was heard coming along the road, and Steele let her go. She was more frightened than hurt, but her stockings were scorched. The two men then ran away, and went back to their beds at Mr. Furber's. They were arrested on the following day by Chief Constable George Wood, of Maitland. A pistol was found under the sheet of bark which served them for a bedstead. When brought up for trial, Judge Stephen (afterwards Sir Alfred Stephen), said the law of England on burglary made no provision for such an outrage as this, committed in a dwelling before nine o'clock. If they were convicted they could not be sentenced to more than fifteen years' imprisonment. The jury found them guilty, and they were sentenced to the term mentioned. They were afterwards charged with shooting at Mr. Garvan with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and were found guilty and sentenced to transportation to a penal settlement for life. It is more than probable that these men, and many others like them, assisted the bushrangers whenever an opportunity occurred--that is, when the bushrangers operated in the neighbourhood in which they were assigned servants, but without actually becoming members of the gang. There was a sort of freemasonry among the convicts which impelled them to assist each other in their war against society, and even in cases where it was obviously to their interests to stand by and assist their masters, their sympathies with the bushrangers and their hatred of all forms of authority impelled them irresistibly to take the opposite side, to their own individual detriment. But the principal gang having been broken up in this district, robberies of the kind described gradually ceased, and it was some years before this district was again disturbed as it had been. In other districts, however, the bushrangers were still active.