At the time his father was absent, and he and his sister only were in the house with the maid-servants.

His sister had a few jewels in her room, and an exaggerated report of them having come to the ears of certain enterprising burglars, a little plan was arranged for obtaining them.
A small boy was hidden in the house, a window was opened, and at the proper witching hour of night a stout individual crept up-stairs in his stocking-feet, and was already at Kate Vavasor's door,--when, in the dark, dressed only in his nightshirt, wholly unarmed, George Vavasor flew at the fellow's throat.

Two hours elapsed before the horror-stricken women of the house could bring men to the place.
George's face had then been ripped open from the eye downwards, with some chisel, or house-breaking instrument.

But the man was dead.
George had wrenched from him his own tool, and having first jabbed him all over with insufficient wounds, had at last driven the steel through his windpipe.

The small boy escaped, carrying with him two shillings and threepence which Kate had left upon the drawing-room mantelpiece.
George Vavasor was rather low in stature, but well made, with small hands and feet, but broad in the chest and strong in the loins.