“Why, man,” said I, “you have just to walk back again; so what’s the use?”
“No use,” he replied, doggedly; “only if you hadn’t caught me I would have been well on to Dalkeith.”
Plunging my hands into his coat-pocket, I pulled out a bundle of picklocks.
“Not cured yet?” said I.
“No,” replied he, “and never will. You have spoiled a good job at Dalkeith with your d——d dodging.”
“Are you a member of a Dalkeith society, too, Lang?” I retorted, good-naturedly.
“Something better,” said he; “I might have had £10 in my pocket before morning, if you hadn’t come between me and my game.”
We began our walk homewards. I didn’t require to take hold of him. We had measured our powers, and he knew he had no more chance in flight than in personal conflict, and he walked quietly enough. I would put my handcuffs to use, however, at the Gibbet Toll, to provide against the dangers of alleys favourable to a bolt. I remember I tried him on the soft parts, in regard to the society-box, reminding him that he was robbing the widow and the fatherless.
“Humph! what have I to do with the widow and the fatherless? I am an orphan myself, and there is a difference besides, for your widow and fatherless have friends, because they have characters, and I don’t know but they are better cared for than I, who have neither the one nor the other. I am bound to a trade, as that trade is bound to me, and I must live or die by it. So there’s no use for your blarney about widows and orphans. All you have to do is to take me up, and get me condemned and imprisoned, and I will be the same man when I come out.”
No doubt he would; and why should I have doubted, who scarcely, in all my experience, could hold out my finger and say, “There’s a man whom I have mended, and he is grateful to me for having been hard with him?” No wonder I am weary of my efforts at penal reformation.
I believe the nine months’ imprisonment awarded tothese three desperate fellows only steeled them to dare the committal of crimes deserving transportation for as many years. How true it is, that the current of vice and criminality proceeds, both in its ebb and flow, on a “sliding scale.”
ITis not often that I have had to deal with irregular criminals, by which I mean those that are not moulded and hardened in infancy and early youth, but who, from some inherent weakness of nature have, by the force of example, or the spur of unlawful gratifications, been precipitated—sometimes against the silent admonitions of their better genius—into a breach of the laws. I have said already that those whom Mr Moxey used to call “abnormals” are comparatively few, and it is not difficult to see how it should happen that their cases are the most painful exhibitions of misery that can be witnessed in this—to most, I fear—very miserable world. In the normals the heart is all in one way. Seldom is there any conscience stirring to produce the terrors of retribution; nay, the conscience is often completely reversed, so that the struggle of pain or anxiety, if it exists, is between the impulse of selfishness and the check imposed by the restraining laws. If a regular thief is sorry for anything, it is for being detected before he has enjoyed the fruit of his ingenuity or violence. There are only two powers inopposition—self, and the world. God is not feared, simply because He is never thought of; religion has no sanction, because it is not known. In the irregulars again, their heart is divided between God and the devil. Yes, that’s my blunt way of putting it. And we may naturally look for some misery, I think, where the poor sensitive mind of the human creature is made the theatre of a contest between such powers.
In September 1850, Mr M——o, solicitor in Regent Terrace, had his bank account in the National Bank operated upon by a forged cheque to the extent of £195. So far as I remember, the forgery was not discovered at the time: nor did the startling intelligence come to him singly—at least it did not remain long single, for there was a crop of minor fabrications that started up like lesser evils round a great one. The forger, whoever he might be, had begun in a small way, as these abnormals generally do—boggling at the first step, then another as the terror waned and the confidence increased, then another and another, till primed for the great leap at length taken. The small cheque-books often kept by gentlemen in the names of their children with the Savings Bank, for the purpose of inducing habits of care and economy, were forged to the effect of abstracting such accumulations of the little daughters as £3 10s., and thereby—small sums and small sufferers—and then came the great feat on the great victim. How true a history ofthe progress of vice—the sliding scale of crime; fear leading passion to prey upon the weak and helpless, and passion throwing off fear, to rush headlong upon the strong!
At first there was a great obscurity as to the depredator. It was with a recoil that Mr M——o thought of his clerks, until suspicion began to be raised by the fact of the absence from the office of one of them, of the name of William L—— O——, who (as usual) seemed to be the very last on whom the mind of a confiding master could fix as the author of an act so treacherous, heartless, and cruel. The determination was at length come to, that he should be secured, and the charge of doing so was committed to me. I got my description, and how true it is that almost every case of the kind presents marks of personal aspect the very reverse of those we would expect; nay, I would say that, with the exception of aside look, expressive of fear, there is nothing about the face of a criminal that would imply either one thing or another as to the existence of tendencies towards even thegreatercrimes. Hence the common expressions, “Who would have supposed it?” “He was so unlike it,” and so forth; all perfectly true. I have seen a devil with the meek face of an infant not less often than I have witnessed the softness and smoothness of infancy overlying nerves of steel leading to powder-pouches of fury and revenge. So be it; but I would not give a very long or very decided squint for all your fanciful expressions of this devilry ort’other; and so in this case. I had enough of marks; but I soon learned that I was now, or later, sure of my man, for I ascertained that, like most other novices, he had taken to drink, to keep up his nerve and down his shame—a resource which throws a sought-for personage into my hands the quickest of any. He had changed his lodgings, and for a time I could only find traces of his fiery passage through taverns, as he flew, sometimes trembling with drink and horror, from one to another, seeking from a fiend, whose gift is delirium, that peace which can only be got from one who behind a rough providence hides a smiling face. His friends, who knew nothing of the charge against him, told me that he had gone with the quickness of a shot into this wild life, and that they considered him mad. I knew otherwise. I deemed that his disease was not remorse, though all such fits are placed to the account of that mysterious power; he was simply under the despair of terror, and as the impulse of fear is the quickest of all passions to take the wind out of a man, I had no doubt I would overtake him between the fiend’s temple and the suicide’s death-bed.
Nor was my expectation long delayed. The search among the lodgings was difficult; he must have changed in lucid intervals, for he cleared away so effectually all behind him, that no one could tell me where he now lived. But at length I discovered his retreat. Placing a couple of constables at the foot of the stair for fear of awindow-drop, I ascended to his room, at the door of which I placed my assistant. It was not a case for premonition by knocking, so I opened the door, which was merely on the lock-catch, and behold my sporter of the little Savings-Bank portions! He was sitting at a table, with a glass and bottle before him; but I could mark from the state of the bottle that his potations at this time had only commenced; nor was I blind to the conviction that the drink-fever was still careering through his veins; the old signs so familiar to me—the trembling hands—the flush—the tumid swellings at the top of the cheeks—the hare-brained eye, with its lightnings of fear.
I doubt if he knew who I was, but he needed no personal knowledge of me to quicken an apprehension that responded, no doubt, to every movement, even to that of a mouse. The first look of me bound him to the easy-chair,—not made for terror-ridden criminals these rests,—to which he fixed himself by hands grasping the soft cushioned arms; his mouth gaped quite open, so that I could even see his parched tongue, as it quivered like a touched jelly-fish, and his eye shot like a fox’s when the hounds rush on him with their yell. I am not exaggerating—I doubt if any one can in such a case; at least all language appears to fall far short in depicting the real state of a man in this young offender’s position. Even the best describers in such cases are only botchers. We see only physical conditions,—mere palpable signs givenin the flesh; nor know aught of the spirit, with its agonising recollections of home,—father, sisters, brothers,—hopes once entertained of a successful future to shed happiness upon them,—all blasted and destroyed, and the only contrast a jail and ignominy.
Yet amidst all this I had a calm part to play.
“You are Mr William L—— O——?”
“Yes.”
“You were clerk to Mr M——o, of the Regent Terrace?”
As I uttered the words, I saw in an instant a change come over him, of a kind I have often noticed in people merely nervous from temperament and not drink. He clasped the arms of the chair more firmly, his trembling ceased as if in an instant, and his eye became steady. Yes, the energy of the instinct of self-preservation shot up through the drink-fever, confirmed his nerves, and prepared him for an onset. I have seen fear run into firmness like the congelations of a liquid metal; but such appearances, which I have learned to understand, never in any case shook my suspicions.
“Yes,” replied he; “and what then?”
“Not much,” said I, “in so far as I am interested, but something in so far as Mr M——o and his young daughters are concerned.”
“I have left his employment, and do not intend to go back,” was the answer, framed to avoid the main chance.
“I am not going to take you back toyouroffice, butrather to take you up toours, with a view to get some explanation of certain forgeries on the National and Savings Banks, perpetrated by some one.”
“Thengetthat some one,” said he, waxing firmer.
“I am just going to take him,” replied I, a little nettled, and taking out my handcuffs.
The sight of these produced another effect, which may be said to be inconsistent with human nature. For my part, I don’t know what human nature is, except just so far as I see it, and I never saw much consistency in it. The attempt to be firm, against the nervousness produced by his week’s drunkenness, seemed to give way, as if suddenly let loose by the opening of some unseen aperture, and the effort to say something strong was changed into a kind of hysterical laugh—something like the cackle of a goose, and dying away into loud breathings. This was the mere going down of the barometer; it got up again on the courage side.
“I deny all knowledge of these forgeries,” he cried.
“Well,” said I, “it will only put us to a little trouble in proving it. In the meantime, accept the handcuffs.”
To this I got no reply. He seemed to be struggling for stronger words of defiance, but they would not come at his bidding, and I heard nothing but a jabber, which expressed nothing but determination. I called in my assistant, and while he lay back in the chair we put on the cuffs—observing, as I have done before, the clenchedhand, with the perspiration in the act of oozing out between the rigid fingers. Can any man imagine the fearful agony that could effect this, or the state of that conscience-riven and bursting heart?
Having raised him up, a little bit of romance introduced itself into this very prosaic affair, and, as it did not come out at the trial, was never known. He was standing by the side of a bureau, and suddenly he snatched with his left hand aminiature(that indispensable appurtenance of the romance-wrights), and placed it in his breast.
“What is that?” said I.
“The portrait of my mother,” he said, and the tear stood in his eye.
“Let me see it,” said I, taking hold of it; and examining it, I found that he had told me what was false. It was the portrait of a young woman, not above twenty years of age, with long black ringlets—exceedingly beautiful, of course—they all are in the velvet-coated case; but as I am no despiser of a good face, I may admit she was really a fair creature,—ay, even as regards beauty, such a one as a man with morelovethandutywould even forge for.
“Why,” said I, “this is the portrait of a young lady. Why did you tell me a lie?”
He paused for a moment. His heart got big, all his hardness had gone, and with a choking voice he said,“I don’t want it to be known that she was connected with me, or ever saw me. So for God’s sake give it me back.”
I saw the impolicy of complying with this request, and put the miniature in my waistcoat pocket.
“No,” said I, “you deny the forgery, and this face may lead me to a witness!”
“Never!” he cried, “she is too innocent to know aught of evil.”
“Be it so,” said I; “I will make no improper use of it, and whatever may happen, I promise to return it to you.”
With this he seemed satisfied,—and we took him up to the Office, where he was locked up in a cell, with but little light, and where, I fear, in the dark hours he would see, in the magic lantern of a criminal’s fancy, many more familiar faces than that of the mysterious original of the portrait. A mother’s, at all events, would not fail to be illuminated there.
Somewhat troublesome as the apprehension of this unfortunate young man had been, it was far more easy than to procure the proper evidence to support an indictment. It turned out, to the annoyance of the authorities, who had no doubt of his guilt, that the imitation of the handwriting of Mr M——o was so skilfully executed, that the cheat was almost too much for the engravers. Forgery is, in this respect, a peculiar kind of crime. You may prove that the forger drew the money; but what then, ifhe was the person that ought to have drawn it for his master? Then, of whatever respectability the proprietor of the forged name, he is only a witness on his own behalf. Suppose the imitationinimitable, where are you? Yet it is to be confessed that so fine a case seldom happens, so that what I have said about the devil’s limp is true here. It seems to be almost beyond the power of a human being to write the name of another in all respects so like that it cannot be detected, even although he has been in the practice of doing so several times a-day for years. But what is still more wonderful, as I’ve been told—for I am now speaking much from hearsay—it is even more difficult to imitate a rude and illiterate hand than a learned one; just as if Providence cared more for the poor, who cannot so well guard and protect themselves against such attempts.
The indictment was, however, prepared and served, and as the case was now more in the hands of the engravers, I had little to do with it; but I could not get quit of my portrait. There it was, still in my waistcoat pocket, just as if I had been some love-smitten swain, doing the romantic, notwithstanding my advanced years; so, thought I sometimes, if I had dropt down dead, or hung myself on a tree, or thrown myself over the Dean Bridge, as wiser men have done before me, what a story might have been founded on this miniature, and how appropriate for a woodcut stuck in front of my works! Doubtlesssome italic letters would have been in request by the printer:—“This great man hanged himself for love. The object of his affections was never known, and must remain a mysterious secret till that time when all things shall be revealed.”
But even such thoughts as these had passed away. One night I went home late. I lighted my gas and sat down by the fire, in one of those reveries which have always taken possession of me when alone; very unlike other people’s reveries, I suspect—for while these are occupied about catching money, or sweethearts, or fame, and sometimes the faces of departed friends, mine never had any other object than the catching of men. From a dream of this kind, and far removed from the case of the young man O——, I heard my door open, and, looking up, saw before me the figure of a fine tall young woman, muffled up in a cloak, and with a veil drawn closely under her chin, and held there by a gloved hand. Even I was amazed; for though I have had strange visitors, there was a something about this one that I am not much in the habit of seeing, at least within the walls of my humble dwelling—something of style and breeding so much above my Bess M‘Diarmids and my Jean Brashes, that I was put off my calculations as to character.
“Are you Mr M‘Levy?” said she, in a clear silvery voice.
“Ay, ma’am, at your service.”
“It was you, I think, who apprehended the unfortunate young man, Mr L—— O——?”
“Yes.”
“When you took him away from his lodgings, did you see about him the miniature of a young female?”
“Yes,” replied I; and here my practical character began to shew signs of activity. I suspected my mysterious visitor had under her veil the fair face from which that miniature had been painted, and my detective instincts carried my hand to my waistcoat pocket.
“Now, my young lady,” said I, “we have a peculiar curiosity about concealed things. If you will shew me your face, I will tell you whether this miniature I hold in my hand is the one you are inquiring after.”
“That I dare not do,” replied she, with a tremble.
“Then I cannot shew you the picture,” said I.
“Would money move you?” said she.
“Not unless gold could cut or dissolve steel,” replied I.
“Ah, then, I am miserable indeed!” she said. “I would not for the whole world that my friends, who are of rank, should know that the miniature of their relative had been found in the possession of a forger.”
“I see no occasion for that coming out,” said I; “the picture is of no use at the trial, and I can prevent every chance of such a circumstance obtaining publicity.”
“Oh, Heaven bless you for the words!” she cried. “Can I trust you?”
“Yes,” said I; but becoming again official, and not relishing the idea of beingdoneby a female, I could not help adding, “But if you can have faith in my promise as regards thepicture, why do you doubt me as respects theoriginal?”
“I cannot—I dare not,” she ejaculated, as she held the veil more firmly. “Adieu! I trust to your pity for one who truly deserves compassion.”
And my mysterious visitor departed. I never heard or saw more of her; but I have since frequently thought of that lovely face, as portrayed no doubt truthfully in the miniature, and formed numerous conjectures:—the disappointed hopes, it might be, of early affection,—the bleeding heart, brooding in secret over the shame of such a connexion,—or, stranger still, the misplaced sympathy of a woman’s love clinging with mistaken tenacity to the unworthy object, notwithstanding the disgraceful crime of which he had been convicted,—these and many others have often passed across my mind as the mysterious visit occurred to me. Nor is it possible to contemplate this affair without wondering at the fatality of the youth, with beauty if not rank in his power, and yet preying on the portions of children.
I have only to add, in conclusion, that the unfortunate young man was found guilty, and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation,—a life of misery entailed, and everything worth living for obscured and forfeited, by the unprincipledand criminal desire of display and prodigality. What a lesson for those holding confidential positions against listening for a moment to the insidious wiles of the tempter!
ITis only a state ofcivilisationthat can produce so strange a relation as that between detectives and robbers. In any other condition of society it is inconceivable, for love is almost always mutual, and hatred reciprocal in rude states; and it is not very easy to conceive a condition where one party follows and seeks from a spirit of well-wishing, and another curses and flies from a spirit of hatred. If there is any one we wish to see more than another, it is a robber; and if there is any creature out of the place of four letters a robber wishes to be away from, it is an officer of the law. It may seem strange enough if I should be able to give a case where this was reversed, in a manner which has sometimes forced from me a laugh.
In 1847, a house in Minto Street, and another in Claremont Crescent, were broken into, and robbed of a vast number of portable articles of great value. The families had left the houses to go to the country; and the robbers, being aware that there was nobody to disturb them, had gone about their selection of articles with much artisticdeliberation and skill, taking only those things which could be melted, such as silver utensils, or altered or dyed, such as silk dresses, shawls, and the like. We got intimation first of the Minto Street affair, for it was some time before it came to be known even to the proprietor that the house in Claremont Street had been disturbed. Having got my commission, I very soon came to the conclusion that, for a time at least, there could be no discovery by tracing the articles; and just as soon to another, that the whole were secreted, probably in a mass, in some of the lodging-houses resorted to by the gang—for that there was a gang I had no manner of doubt—nor was I at a loss about some of the component parts of the crew,—at least I knew that one or two well-known housebreakers had been seen in the city, and their affinities are almost a matter of course with us.
There was ingenuity, therefore, required in this affair beyond the mere care in dogging some of the artists to their dormitories, and this I soon accomplished by tracing Jane Walker, one of their callets, to the house of one Sim at the West Port. Other bits of intelligence contributed to the conclusion, that Sim’s house was the sleeping place of some of them, and the rendezvous of the whole pack. As I have already said, I have always had a craving for a full haul when I put out my net, and take my seat in the cobble to see the wily tribe get into the meshes. So on this occasion I made my arrangements with this view.At a late hour one night I took with me several constables and proceeded to Sim’s house. I arranged my men in such a way that egress was scarcely possible, while some one would be ready to help me inside in the event of an emergency; for it is no indifferent affair to go bang in upon an entire gang of desperate burglars, especially when there are women among them—a remark which requires merely this explanation, that the women egg up the men to resistance, and the men have often a desire to shew off their prowess before their dulcineas.
Having presented myself at Sim’s door, I heard a shout of merriment, indicative of a goodly company; and I confess the sound, though rough and brutal, was rather pleasant to me, for it satisfied me they were all there, and, moreover, off their guard, through the seduction of their tender dalliances. I am often fine in my self-introductions, but here I found my cue in bluntness. I opened the door with a sudden click of the sneck, and stood before as motley a crew of ruffians and viragoes as I ever remember to have seen. Nor was the effect all on one side. If I was amazed at seeing such a collection of celebrities, they were not less astonished at seeing me. Laughter did not need to hold her sides, nor Mockery to twist her chaps into mows, nor even Inebriety to flare up into a rage. All was quiet in an instant, with every eye fixed upon me as if by a charm. No placating subtlety was of any use among that gang. They were up to every manœuvre.Sim himself, James M‘Culloch, John Anderson, Hector M‘Sally, James Stewart, Agnes Hunter, Sarah Jack, Christian Anderson, and Jane Walker, had been all too well accustomed to such blandishments as mine, to be thrown off their guard beyond the instant of the working of the first charm. They simply took me for a devil, who might seize their bodies for punishment, but could not insist upon their pledges to be his for ever. In short, they knew the extent of my power, as well as their necessities to resist it, but only if resistance could be successful.
I had stopt their merriment;—but just allow me, as I stand for a moment before them, to say, it is no merriment that these strange beings enjoy: their hearts have no part in their laughter, which is a mere dry shaking of the lungs, and better named as a cackle, or sometimes a vociferation. It is almost always the result of a personal gibe; for there is no real friendship to restrain them, and their art is a deadly fly that kills at the first leap. They seem to find some relief from the tearing devil within, by tearing their brother devils without; and though it is done under the semblance of fun, it is as cruel and wicked as they can make it. But then the very cruelty in the personality gets applause; the laugh rings, and every one has his turn to be quizzed and gibed—the bearing of which, again, is a kind of stern virtue among them. It is all a heart-burning, with a flickering ebullition over the surface; and the effort seems to be to produce pain, andyet to make it pass as a kind of pleasure. I know them well; and could, at a distance, distinguish between the merriment of people with sound hearts, and that of these artificial beings, as well as I could do were I among them, and knew the two sets of characters.
A moment sufficed for my introduction.
“There are some things that have gone amissing,” said I, “and I want to know whether any of them are here.”
“Nothing,” said Sim; but the manner of his “nothing” shewed me it was a misnomer for “something.”
“No harm in seeing. I don’t charge any of you, but I may just say that you are as safe in your seats there, as you could be if you had wings and used them. I have friends at the door, so—quiet. Sim, I want to speak with you in the other room. Get a candle.”
All authority lies in bearing. The man obeyed like a machine, got his dip lighted, and followed me into the small room, (there were only two in the house,) when I took the light from him, with the intention of looking into hidden places, but there was strangely enough no necessity for searching. There before me stood a huge trunk or box, more like a coal bunker or ship’s locker than a chest, and sufficient to have held within its capacious sides a jeweller’s stock. Knocking my foot against it, and finding it heavy with contents,
“Why,” said I, “how comes this to be here?”
“All right,” replied the man; “nothing of yours there.”
“Let me see,” said I. “Get me the key.”
“The key is with the proprietor,” said he, coolly. “Why you know, sir, it’s an emigrant’s box that there, and he has merely left it with me till the ship sails, when he will return for it—all right.”
“And there’s nothing in it belonging to these gentry in the kitchen?”
“Not a handkerchief.”
“Well,” said I, “as I don’t wish this trunk toemigratebefore I know what’s inside, I will break it open.”
And going into the kitchen, I seized a big salamander, standing by the fire, and without saying a word to the no doubt wondering company, who were working hard to look easy, I returned to the room. Up to this kind of work, I managed, by getting a lever point for my poker, to send the top of the box in splinters in a very few minutes, but with a crash which, like the laughter of my friends in the kitchen, had more sound than music in it. And lo! there was a sight—a veritable curiosity box—a bazaar in miniature; in short, as I afterwards ascertained, all the valuables abstracted not only from the house in Minto Street, but from that in Claremont Crescent, had been brought together, as if by the hand of Prospero’s little friend, for my gratification, and yet with no bidding from me.
I had taken a large liberty, and I must take a larger to justify thefirst. I had provided myself with some of Mrs M‘G——r’s marks—the lady in Minto Street—so I straightway began to turn out the fine poplins and silks, which overlaid the jewellery at the bottom, till I could find a handkerchief or some article bearing a name, and that I very soon did, in a damask towel, bearing “M‘G. 6.” I was now relieved from all fears of a misused freedom.
“All right,” said I.
And going to the door, I called on my men. There was here a little mismanagement. They were not so close as they should have been, and M‘Sally and Stewart, the real burglars, getting desperate, jostled the first officer, and pushing him up against the wall, escaped; nor were the other men sufficiently on the alert to be able to intercept them, so that they got themselves reserved, as it were, for a fate which is the real burden of my story.
The trunk, and all the remaining members of the gang, were straightway under better keeping than that of Mr Sim, who considered allsoright; but I had to lament the want of mychiefs, the very men on whom my mind was set, and for whom I would have given the whole contents of the locker; but I was not to be done out of them by a mere flight, which did not exclude me from a long shot, and that shot I proceeded to prepare. The prior history of M‘Sally enabled me to suspect that he was away down by the east coast to get to London, and I had no doubt Stewart would accompany him, so I straightway got the Lieutenant to forward their portraits to Berwick-on-Tweed,Newcastle, and Shields, with directions to the different Lieutenants to seize and send them back to Edinburgh, where they were specially wanted. As matters turned out, this was a happy suggestion, and proved a comfort to me after my distress.
My gentlemen, just as I suspected, had made their way down to Berwick, with very little money as it appeared, yet with such a locker at home, upon which they had expected to live and feast for many months, (alas, the vanity of human wishes!) and arrived there pretty late at night. They, of course, wanted lodgings, and why should they not get them for nothing, where the philanthropic people of the old town, reversing their former fire-eating character, had prepared the town-hall, of ancient renown for bellicose orations, as a place of refuge for the destitute. The two refugees were even in their misfortunes inclined to be humorous, and took it into their heads to act the part of industrious “tramps,” travelling to the south in search of work, and apply for a night’s lodging at the very town-hall itself. But who had the privilege of giving out the tickets? Why, who better qualified than the Superintendent of Police himself, who could, from his office, make the proper distinction between the really deserving applicants, and those to whom a jail was a more fitting place of abode? And so it was the Superintendent had the charge of the house of refuge as well as the house of bondage. They had run away forhousebreaking, and escaped the fiend M‘Levy, and there was a neat squareness in playing off a trick upon his brother of Berwick. A glimpse of the sunshine of fun comes well after the gloom of misfortune; besides, sweet is refuge to the houseless; and then a supper and a breakfast was not to be despised.
They were accordingly soon brought before the dispenser of refuge and justice, who was busy at the time scanning a paper.
“Poor workmen, sir, going south in search of work,” said M‘Sally; “would your honour pass us to the town-hall?”
“Where from?” said the Superintendent.
“Aberdeen.”
“Your names?”
“James M‘Intosh and John Burnet,” was the reply.
“Blue coat and grey trousers,” muttered the Superintendent, as he looked at the paper—“blue coat and grey trousers,” he repeated, as he glanced at M‘Sally. “Monkey jacket and buff vest,” looking again at the paper—“monkey jacket and buff vest,” directing his eyes to Stewart.
“We have been travelling all day, sir,” said Stewart, “and are weary; please pass us on.”
But the Superintendent was in no hurry.
“Grey eyes and foxey whiskers,” he muttered, again getting more curious, as he read and looked, and lookedand read, still going over features—“sharp nose, grey eyes, fiery-coloured whiskers—dark eyes and black whiskers”—and so forth, until at last he came to the conclusion—“the very men.”
“Yes,” he said, as he rose and touched a small bell, “I will pass you, but not to the town-hall of Berwick.”
“Any other quarters for poor destitutes will do, sir,” said Stewart.
“What think you of the police-office of Edinburgh,” said the Superintendent, “where you, Hector M‘Sally and Joseph Stewart, are, according to this paper I have in my hands, and which I got just as you entered, charged with breaking into a house in Minto Street, and another in Claremont Crescent, and stealing therefrom many valuable articles.”
“We are not the men,” said the two, determinedly.
“Read your paper again, sir,” said M‘Sally, “and compare, and you’ll find we are not the men.”
The Superintendent was taken aback, and did look again.
“Would you read out the description?” said M‘Sally.
“I think you have got on a blue coat and grey trousers,” said the Superintendent.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you have got grey eyes and foxey whiskers?”
“No, sir; black eyes and black whiskers.”
“And you,” said the Superintendent, a little put out,turning to Stewart, “you have a monkey-jacket and buff vest?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And black eyes and beard?”
“No, sir; grey eyes and light whiskers.”
“Well, then, how stand your noses? You”—to M‘Sally—“have a turned-up one, and a little awry, I think?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you”—to Stewart—“have a very long one, raised in the middle?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, well; suppose the clothes of the one put upon the other—it was easy for you to change them—and we have you to a button. Bertram, pass these gentlemen to a cell for the night, and I shall get them sent off to Edinburgh in the morning.”
Next day we had a letter setting forth the dodge of the exchange, and the curious way they had fallen into the hands of the Superintendent. It was thence an easy business to get our two gentlemen to go to the right shop—Norfolk Island—after having tried the wrong one at Berwick. They and Anderson were transported for seven years. M‘Culloch was acquitted.
IBELIEVEthat if any one were to look back upon his past life for the purpose of tracing out the most curious parts of it, he would find that they originated in the work of my old lady, Chance, and which is nothing more than something occurring just at the moment when it is unlooked for, but, being taken advantage of, turns out to be important. The great secret is to be able to seize the advantage, and this, as concerns my kind of work, lies in something like natural reasoning. If there’s anything out of the ordinary fitness of things, I begin to try to find out why it should be so. Books and learning don’t help a man here. I have sometimes thought they rather work against him, and hence it is that we find so many illiterate people rise up to be great and wealthy. Ay, but they can also be clever in a bad way; so with our thieves; but I have this consolation, that if their mother-wit has done a great deal for them, mine has also to their cost done something for me. I will give you a case.
In 1845, there were almost daily occurring cases of robbery from larders in the New Town, and, what wasmore extraordinary, the accounts all tallied as to the fact that the thieves were exceedingly dainty. It was only the fine pieces of meat that would please them—large joints and legs of mutton—nor did they seem to care for cold meat, in some instances leaving it, as if they were above that kind of food. Of course, I had my ordinary professional reasons for being active in endeavouring to lay hold of these burglars, who seemed to be so envious of the good things of their neighbours, but I confess to the weakness of having had a little of that same feeling in regard to them. I was not easy under the notion that any of my children should be thus living at hack and manger in so very much more luxurious a manner than myself, and felt a great desire to shew them the difference between these hot joints and the fare I am in the habit of providing for them.
But how was I to get hold of them? Who could trace a leg of mutton after it was cut down and eaten? No wee pawns for joints or beefsteaks, and then the omnivorous gentry are generally so hungry that they could not afford, however epicurean, to lay past, to get tender and high-flavoured, a gigot of wether mutton or piece of venison. Then as to catching red-hand, that was out of the question, for upon inquiry it was found that the thieves never tried a larder a second time. I could, in short, make no discovery, and I was more uncomfortable under my want of success than I generally am, insomuch that mycooks were not only angry at losing their joints, but driven into a passion at the gentry’s dinners being spoilt by the disappearance on the previous night of some “old leg” which had been kept a fortnight for the very occasion, and which could not be supplied by the butcher. Their honour was at stake, and we all know what the honour of acuisinièreamounts to when the same is calculated by the dripping lips of agobe-mouche. I have caught “old legs,” which, like Madeira, had been sent over the sea to improve, and have found them improved in the contrary way, but here my “old legs” defied me.
I had given up hope, and my angry cooks were left to look better after the joints that were to be used in future, when one night I happened to go into the shop of Mr M‘Dougal at the foot of the High Street. There were several people in the shop, and I stood back, not to avoid the gaze of Mrs Biddy Riddel of the Fountain Close, (her maiden name was O’Neil), who didn’t look for me, and didn’t see me, for, in truth, I was after no game that evening, but merely to avoid interfering with the customers. Now was Biddy’s turn to be served.
“Half an ounce ov good tay—an ounce ov sugar—and an ounce ov raal Durham musthard,” said she.
The purchase struck me as being singular, and I’m sure the grocer was of the same opinion. I was perfectly aware that she was of the class of the half-ounce-of-tea-and-glass-of-whisky buyers, and if she had asked thewhisky I would have considered the purchase as quite in the ordinary way, but the “raal Durham” was quite another thing, and I could account for it nohow.
I saw that the grocer had looked at Biddy when she asked the mustard, just as if he felt inclined to ask what she was to do with so large a quantity, nay, any quantity, however small, but he proceeded without saying a word to tie up the tea and the sugar, then, coming to the third article,
“Did you say an ounce of mustard, Mrs Riddel?”
“Ay, raal Durham.”
“Why, that will go a far way with you,” said Mr M‘Dougal, as he looked over to me, and laughed—a kind of interference with the rights of trade that Biddy did not seem to relish.
“Wid me?” she said; “and why wid me? Shure, couldn’t I buy a pound ov it if I chose?”
“And most happy would I be to sell it to you,” was the reply.
“Ay, and I may need a pound ov it too,” she continued, “if it doesn’t plase the Lord to be kinder to me; for hasn’t Willie caught a terrible cowld, and amn’t I to put a blisther on his throat this blissid night?”
“Ah, that’s another thing, Mrs Riddel. I’m sorry for William. His trade of chimney-sweeping takes him early out in the cold mornings.”
“And shure it does,” she replied; “but the never a bitless shame to ye to think I was to ate musthard like honey and the devil a bit ov salt mate to take wid it.”
“I am sorry for the mistake,” said the grocer, as he rolled up the small packet, and Biddy laid down the pence.
“And so you may,” added she, not altogether reconciled; “and, what’s more, have I not as good a right to a piece of salt bacon as the gintry?”
And not contented yet without the parting salute—
“And ye don’t know yet that we kept pigs at home, at Ballynagh; ay, an’ they more than paid the rint; and, what’s more, bedad, we didn’t need to tie the bit ov bacon to the ind ov the string and swallow it, and thin pull it out agin.”
“I believe it, Mrs Riddel,” said the grocer.
And then the last words came—
“And what’s more, it wasn’t straiked wid a hunger and a burst, like your gintry’s. Just purty white and red where it should be; and we had musthard, too, galore, when we wanted it. Shure, and I’ve settled your penn’orth, anyhow.”
And so she had; for as she went grandly away, carrying in her hand her half-ounce of tea, and in her head the honour of Ballynagh, Mr M‘Dougal looked as if he had committed an error in joking as he had done on the wants of the poor.
“You’ve raised the lady’s dander,” said I.
“Which I shouldn’t have done,” said he, “for her penny is as good to me as another’s; and then she needs the mustard for theoutsideof her son’s throat, not thein.”
To which sentiment I agreed, even with a little sympathy for the feelings of a mother, whose penny for a blister for her son’s throat was just the tribute which she could ill spare paid from a mother’s affection to old Æsculapius. I confess to having been somewhat amused by Biddy’s Irish vindication of the rights of her family, but having been merely amused, the interlude passed out of my mind—so completely so, that by the next morning I was thinking of something very different from Mrs Riddel and her invalid son, Willie, with the sore throat.
Next day I was passing the mouth of the Fountain Close, and whom did I see standing there, with a pipe in his mouth, but Bill himself, arrayed in his suit of black, with face of the same, indicating that he had been at work in the morning? He was quite well known to me, and from a circumstance which will appear ludicrous. I had occasion at one time to separate him from a baker with whom he had quarrelled, and with whom, also, he had fought so long that the two had so mixed colours that you couldn’t have told which was the man of the oven or the man of the chimney; but the truth is, that he had more to answer for than thrashing a baker, for hewas an old offender in another way, where he took without giving something more than dust. Of course it was a mystery to me how he had so soon recovered from his sore throat, and the effects of the “raal Durham.”
“Well, Bill, how’s your throat, lad?” said I, going up to him.
“My throat?” replied he; “nothing’s wrong with it—never had a sore throat in my life.”
“Except once,” said I.
“When?”
“When I took you by it rather roughly,” said I.
“Unpleasant recollection,” said the rogue. “Don’t wish it mentioned. Steady now,—nothing but lum-sweeping and small pay.”
“And no mustard-poultice last night?”
“Mustard-poultice? Strange question! never had a mustard-poultice in my life.”
“Quite sure? let me see your throat.”
“More sure than I am that you’re not gibing a poor fellow,” replied he, pulling down his neckcloth. “I don’t belong to you now, so be off, unless you want me to sweep your vent for sixpence—cheap, as things go, and I’ll leave you the soot to hide your shame for what you did to me yon time.”
Well, I took the joke, and really I had no reason in the world for doubting his word as to either the throat or the blister, but I confess I was startled, and couldn’taccount for the discrepancy between the story of the lady of Ballynagh and that of her son. Things were out of their natural fitness, and there was some explanation required to bring them into conformity with it and themselves. What that explanatory thing was I couldn’t tell, and so I walked into the grocer’s.
“Why,” said I, “Biddy Riddel’s black darling has no sore throat, after all. He is standing at the close-head quite well, with his throat, which I have seen, as black as soot.”
“Strange enough,” said he.
“Have you sold her any ham of late?” said I, after musing a little.
“Too poor for that,” he replied; “all goes for whisky, and Biddy’s half-ounces of tea, with, no doubt, a bit of coarse meat occasionally, to which an ounce of Durham would, of course, be out of the question.”
“Did she ever buy from you any mustard before?” I inquired again.
“Why, now when I recollect, yes,” replied he. “About a week ago she had an ounce. I had really forgotten that, when last night I touched her on a tender part.”
With my additional information I left the shop, meditating as I went up the High Street on the strangeness of the affair, small though it was—for a little animal is just as curious in its organization as a big one, and I’ve heard of some great man who lost his eyesight by peering too closely into these small articles of nature’s workmanship.I didn’t intend to lose mine, and yet I couldn’t give over thinking, though it is just as sure as death that I saw no connexion between what I had heard noticed and the larder affair, neither then nor afterwards, during the entire day. Besides, another business took the subject out of my head, so that I thought no more of it.
Next morning, as I was proceeding to the Office, my attention was again called to the mystery of the mustard-blister, by encountering the lady of Ballynagh carrying a stoup of water from the Fountain Well, and I couldn’t resist a few words as I passed.
“Well, Mrs Riddel,” said I, with true official gravity, “how is your darling’s throat after the blister?”
“And it’s you that has the impidence to ask it?” replied she; “are you a docthor?”
“Yes, I sometimes try to mend people when they’rebad.”
“To kill them, you mane, and the heart ov many a dacent widdow besides,” was the reply.
“But I didn’t make Bill’s throat sore this time.”
“No more ye did; but small thanks to ye, for wouldn’t ye hang him, if yez could? and, shure, to hang a man wid the proud flesh in his throat would be a mighty plaisant thing to the likes ov ye; and didn’t I look down it wid me own eyes?”
“But Bill says he never had a sore throat in his life.”
“And isn’t that becase he’s so bowld a boy?” repliedshe. “He never complains, becase he knows it would hurt me; but is that any raison I shouldn’t blisther him when he’s ill? And didn’t I know he was ill when he could only spake like a choking dog, and couldn’t for the life ov him take a cup of tay or ate a bit ov bread?”
And taking up her pitcher, she hurried away, leaving me as much in the dark as ever on this great subject, destined to become so much greater before even that day was done, but not by any exertions of mine, for as yet I could see nothing in it beyond the fact that there was some incident required to be known to bring out the fitness of things. Nor was it long before I got satisfaction. The day was a strolling one with me, more a look-out for “old legs” than a pursuit after new ones, and for some reason which I don’t now recollect, I was in Hanover Street, along which I had got (it was now dark) a short way when I observed a sweep coming along with a jolly leg of mutton in his hand. We are sometimes blamed for being somewhat curious in our inquiries into the nature of carried parcels, but here there was so much of the real unfitness of things that I might, I thought, be justified in my curiosity—all the more, too, when I discovered that the proprietor or carrier was my friend of the sore throat.
“Where got you the leg of mutton, Bill?” inquired I, as I stood before him, and stopped his quick pace, intended to be much quicker the moment he saw me.
“The leg of mutton?” replied he, taken aback.
“Yes,” said I, “just the leg of mutton. It is so seldom you have a thing of that kind about you that I feel curious to know.”
“You might as well ask that gentleman where he got his umbrella or his coat,” was the cool reply.
“Not just the same,” said I; “but I do not choose to point out the difference. Where got you it?”
“Bought it to be sure, and that’s enough for you.”
“Quite enough,” said I, “if you did buy it, and I confess you have a good taste. A better leg I haven’t seen for a long time. An ‘old leg’ too, and just kept long enough to be tender. Who’s your butcher?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Perhaps I might fancy one the same,” said I; for I felt inclined to play a little as the idea of the mustard began to tickle my brain and make me merry. “I might even fancy that one and offer a premium upon it.”
“What premium?” he said, perhaps not knowing very well what to say.
“Perhaps sixty days and ‘skeely’ without a drop of mustard.”
The word operated like a charm on my sooty epicure, but he didn’t seem to understand it any way, looking into my face inquisitively, and no doubt remembering the conversation about the blister without being able toconnect the two things, for doubtless his mother had told him nothing of his sore throat and of the remedy.
“Come,” said I, “there are just two ways. You take me to the butcher’s shop or I take you to mine.”
Bill was too sensible a fellow not to see, even without the quickening of the blister, that it was all up with him, and so accordingly, carrying his leg of mutton, he accompanied me very quietly to the Office, where I deposited him and his burden. I now examined the leg with the view of endeavouring to ascertain whether it might be identified, for I was here in the position I was in that morning I had so much difficulty about my booty in the Cock and Trumpet. But I soon discovered what I thought might serve my purpose, and, telling the lieutenant to take care not to allow the leg to be handled, I took my way to the Fountain Close, where I found my proud lady of Ballynagh sitting at her ease, no doubt expecting her son in by and by, or at least before supper, which supper he would doubtless bring in himself, she providing the mustard.
“I’m just here again,” said I, as I opened the door and went in.
“Ay, always shoving in your nose where you’ve no more right to be than in heaven, where you’ll never have any right at all,” replied she. “What wid me now?”
“I just want to know, Mrs Riddel, what you did withthe ounce of mustard you bought two nights ago at Mr M‘Dougal’s?”
“The musthard?” she exclaimed, at the top of her voice.
“Just the ‘raal Durham.’ ”
“The raal Durham! and what should I do wid it but make a blisther for Bill’s throat, as I towld ye before, and tell ye agin?”
“And yet here is the most of it in this cup, ready made for supper,” said I, as I took from the old cupboard the article, and held it before her.
“And was I to use it all at wunst for a blisther, d’ye think, ye mighty docthor M‘Lavy?” said she, with something of her usual greatness; “and isn’t his throat sore yet, and won’t he naid the rest ov it this very night?”
“Then what will become of this fine piece of salt beef?” said I, as I pulled out of the same recess the article which appeared so strange in a small hovel, with two chairs and a table, and scarcely a bit of furniture besides. “You must reserve a little for it?”
“And who gave ye the power to spake about my mate, and ask whether I ate musthard to it or not? Isn’t it me own?”
“That’s just what I want to know,” said I, as I took out my handkerchief to roll it up in.
“And who knows that better than the woman who bought it, and salted it, ay, and put saltpatre upon it, and hung it, and boiled it?”
“And told me that the mustard was for her son’s throat,” said I.
“Ay, and the thruth, too, every word ov it.”
“Well, I’m going to take the beef to the Police Office, where Bill is,” said I; “I will leave you the mustard.”
“If you are going to be a thaif, take it altogether,” she cried, “and may the devil blister your throat before you try to ate what belongs to a poor widdow! And you’ve ta’en up the boy agin, have yez?”
“Yes.”
“For stailing his own mate?”
“And if you are not quiet,” said I, “I will return and take up you for helping him to eat it.”
“And that would just make the right ind ov it, you murtherin’ spoiler ov widdows and orphans.”
And now that she had begun to abuse me I might get more of her “good words” than I wanted, so I left her, hearing, as I went down stairs, as many of the widow’s malisons as would have served, if they had been blessings, for the contents of all the rifled larders.
I had nearly got to the Office when a cook from Inverleith Terrace came and reported the theft of a leg of mutton. I was now pretty certain I had not overstepped my duty in apprehending Bill, but the difficulty remained as to the identification.
“Would you know your leg if you saw it?” inquired I.
“As easily as I would know my own, if it were cut off,” she replied, with a grim smile.
“Is that it, then?” said I, as I shewed her the article.
“The very leg,” said she. “There’s the wether mark and the snip off the tail, to shew me which I was to use first, and to-morrow is the great dinner day.”
“I was trusting to the string,” said I, as I held within my hand the piece by which the leg had been hung on the hook.
“And so you might,” replied she, “for it is a piece of an old window cord which was lying on the dresser, and the rest of it is still in the kitchen.”
“Is that it?”
“The very bit; I tied it with my own hands. But how, in the name of all that’s wonderful, has the leg found its way here before me?”
“Never you mind that,” said I. “You will be able to swear to the article?”
“Ay; but what am I to do for the dinner?”
“Why,” said I, “you could scarcely serve up to your master and his guests a leg of mutton that had been stolen by a sweep, and been in the Police Office. Our ‘old legs’ don’t get into high company when they leave our society.”
For the leg Bill was supplied with the “raal Durham” in the shape of twelve months’ imprisonment.