“Search them,” said I.
A process which, as regards women, we generally leave to our female searchers, but which I was obliged to have recourse to here in a superficial way to guard valuables, so easily secreted or cast away, and a process which requires promptness even to the instant; for on such an occasion, the cunning of women is developed with a subtlety transcending all belief. The hair, the hollow of the cheek, under the tongue, in the ear, up the nostrils, even the stomach being often resorted to as the receptacles of small but valuable articles. We contrived allfour to dart upon the creatures at once, each seizing his prey. The suddenness of the onset took them by surprise, and in the course of a few minutes, we had collected into a shining heap nearly the whole of Mr Jackson’s most valuable jewels.
We then marched the whole nine up to the Police-Office, I carrying the magic box, which, if I had been vainglorious, I would have set agoing as an appropriate accompaniment to our march up the High Street.
They were all tried on the 25th July 1843; Preger got fourteen years, and Shields ten. The women got off on the admission that they got the jewellery from Shields and Preger. I remember that, after the trial, Mr Jackson addressed me something in these terms:—
“Mr M‘Levy, I owe the recovery of my property to you. I will retain my jewels, but as for the articles of apparel, I am afraid that were I to wear them I might myself become a thief; so you may dispose of them, and take the proceeds, with my thanks. The musical box I will keep as a useful secret informer; so that in the event of my house being robbed again, it may have a chance, through its melody, of recovering my property.”
ITmay be naturally supposed that we detectives are not much given to sadness. It is, I suspect, a weakness connected with me, a tendency to meditate on the vanity of human wishes; and I should be free from the frailty, insomuch as there has been less vanity in my wishes to apprehend rogues than in the case of most other of the artistes of my order. Yet am I not altogether free from the weakness. We have a natural wish to see our friends happy around us, and this desire is the source of my little frailty; for when I find my ingenious friends off my beat, and away elsewhere, I immediately conclude they are being happy at the expense of others, and I am not there to sympathise; nor does it affect this tendency much that I am perfectly aware that my sympathy rather destroys their happiness.
I had, about April 1854, lost sight for a time of the well-known Dan Gillies. He had had my sympathies more than once, and immediately took to melancholy; but somehow or another he recovered his gaiety,—a sure enough sign that he again stood in need of my condolence.I had been told that in kindness he and his true-hearted Bess M‘Diarmid had gone to the grazing on turnips, (watches,) and that I had small chance of seeing him for a time. Well, here was an occasion for a return of my fit, for wasn’t Dan happy somewhere, and I not there to see. I don’t say I was thinking in that particular direction on that 5th day of April when I was walking along Princes Street, for indeed I was looking for another natural-born gentleman among those who, considering they have better claims to promenade that famous street, pretend to despise those who, I have said, are nearer to natural rights than they are; but indulging in that habit of side-looking, which I fear I have borrowed from my friends, who persist in an effort to avoid a straight, honest look at me, I descried a well-known face under a fine glossy silk hat, and above a black and white dappled cravat. A glance satisfied me that the rest of the dress was in such excellent harmony that he might, two minutes before, have come out of the Club, where plush and hair-powder stands at the door. It was Dan. The grazing must have been rich to give him so smooth and velvety a coat; and to shew that he had not despised his fare, he had a yellow “shaw” stretching between the middle of his fine vest to the pocket. When a grand personage, who despises the toil which makes us all brethren, meets one of my humble, laborious order, he makes a swerve to a side, even though the wind is in another direction, toavoid the blasting infection of common humanity, and Dan was here true to his class; but as I do not discard the duties any more than the rights of nature, I overlooked the insult, and swerved in the same direction, not being confident enough, nevertheless, to infect with my touch the hand of a Blue-Vein, if not a Honeycomb.
“Why, Dan,” said I, as I faced him, and somewhat interrupted his passage, “what a fine pair of whiskers you’ve got since I saw you. The turnips must have been reared on the real Peruvian.”
“What the d——l have you to do with my whiskers?”
“One who has been the means of shaving your head,” replied I, “may surely make amends by rejoicing in the growth of your fine hair elsewhere.”
“None of your gibes. Be off. I owe no man anything.”
“No, Dan, but every man, you know, owes you, if you can make him pay. Don’t you know what’s up?”
“No, and don’t care.”
“There’s a grand ship-launch at Leith to-day.”
“D——n your ship-launch!” said the Honeycomb; and pushing me aside, Dan strutted away under the indignation of the shame of my presence.
I could not help looking after him, and recollecting the remark of Lord Chesterfield on the South-Sea Islander who sat at table in the company of lords. Looking at his back, you could perceive no difference between himand a high-bred aristocrat. But the aristocrats don’t mind those thin distinctions.
Having some much more important business in hand that day, all recollection of Dan and his whiskers passed out of my mind. I remember I had to meet a French lackey who could point out to me a London brewer’s clerk committed to my care. The offender had run away from his employer, taking with him not only the flesh which had got so lusty upon the stout, but also a couple of thousand pounds which he ought to have deposited in a bank; nor was this even the entire amount of his depredations, for he had also contrived to abstract the brewer’s wife, described by my Frenchman as a “great succulent maman of forty years,” and not far from that number of stones avoirdupois. With such game in prospect, it was not likely I should trouble myself with Dan Gillies, nor did I care more for the Leith launch. The constables there could look to that, though I was not the less aware that if Dan got among the crowd there would be pockets rendered lighter, without more of a “purchase” than might be applied by a thief’s fingers.
Notwithstanding of the brightness of my prospects in the morning—for I had even pictured to myself the English clerk with the “succulent maman” hanging on his arm, and together promenading Princes Street—my hopes died away as the day advanced. I had got, moreover, weary of the clatter of the lackey, and was, in short,knocked up. It might be about four o’clock, I think, when I resolved upon returning by the way of the Office, where I had some report to make before going home to dinner. I proceeded slowly along Waverley Bridge, turned past the corner of Princes Street gardens, and advanced by the back of the Bank of Scotland. I was in reality at the time looking for none of my friends. I had had enough of looking, and felt inclined rather to give my eyes a rest by directing them to the ground, after the manner of melancholy musers. As I was thus listlessly making my way, I was roused by a rapid step, and I had scarcely time to look up when I encountered my young Honeycomb of the morning. I was at first confused, and no great wonder, for there was Dan Gillies without a single hair upon his face. The moment he saw me he wanted to bolt, but the apparition prompted me on the instant to cross him, and hold him for a moment at bay.
“Dan, Dan,” said I, with really as much unfeigned surprise as humour, “what has become of your whiskers, man?”
A fiery eye, and the terrible answer which sends a man to that place where one might suppose that eye had been lighted, so full of fury was it.
“Why, it’s only a fair question,” said I, again keeping my temper. “I might even wish to know the man who could do so clean a thing.”
“What have you to do with my barber?”
“Why, now you are getting reasonable,” said I; “your question is easily answered; I might want him, say on a Sunday morning, to do to me what he has done to you.”
Again dispatched to the place of four letters with an oath which must have been forged there by some writhing soul, I could stay him no longer, for making a rush past me, Dan Gillies was off in the direction of the Flesh-market Close, up which I saw him turn.
His oaths still rung in my ear. I have often thought of the wonderful aptitude of the grown-up Raggediers at swearing; they begin early, if they do not lisp, in defiances of God, and you will hear the oaths ringing amidst the clink of their halfpennies as they play pitch-and-toss. Their little manhood is scarcely clothed in buckram, when they would look upon themselves as simpletons if they do not vindicate their independence by daring both man and Heaven. You may say they don’t understand the terms they use. Perhaps few swearers do; but in these urchins the oaths are the sparks of the steel of their souls, and there is not one of them unprepared to shew by their cruelty that their terrible words are true feelings. It may appear whimsical in me, but I have often thought that if this firmness of character—for it is really a mental constitution—were directed and trained by education and religion in the track of duty, it would develop itself as an energy fitted for great and good things. A man like me has no voice in the Privy Council; butliterature,as I have heard said, is a big whispering-gallery, whereby the humblest of minds may communicate with the highest. Let it be that my whisper is laughed at, as everything is grinned at or laughed at which is said for the hopefulness of our wynd reprobates; but I have learned by experience, that while the greatest vices spring from the dregs of society, the Conglomerates, as they are called in that book (which describes them so well,) “The Castes of Edinburgh,” so the greatest virtues sometimes spring from the same source. How much of the vice they areforcedto retain, and how much of the virtue they are compelled to lose, is one of the whispers which ought to reach the ears of the great.
At the time Dan left me, I was not in this grand way of thinking. Nay, to be very plain, I was laughing in my sleeve; because, in the first place, a detective is not a Methodist preacher; and in the second place, because I have a right to my fun as well as others; and in the third place, because I came to the conclusion that Dan Gillies had some reason for shaving his whiskers which ought to interest me. In short, I had no doubt that Dan and his “wife” had been at the ship-launch.
With the laugh, I suppose, still hanging about my lips as a comfortable solace after my ineffectual hunt after the brewer’s clerk and the jolly maman, I entered the Office, where the first information I got was, that a lady had been robbed of her purse at Leith, and that a youngwench was in hands there as having been an accomplice along with a swell of a pickpocket who had escaped.
“I was thinking as much,” said I, with a revival of my laugh; “I know the man.”
And so I might well say, for I had now got to the secret of the shaved whiskers.
“What mean you?” said the lieutenant.
“Why, just that if you want the man, I will bring him to you. I will give you the reason of my confidence at another time.”
“To be sure we want him,” was the rather sharp reply of my superior.
“Then I will fetch him,” said I.
And so I went direct to Brown’s Close, where I knew the copartnership of Gillies and M‘Diarmid formerly carried on business, both in the domestic and trading way. Domestic! what a strange word as applied to these creatures—charm, as it is, to conjure up almost all the associations which are contained in the whole round of human happiness! Yes, I say domestic; happiness is a thing of accommodation. These beings will go forth in the morning in the spring of hope, and after threading dangers which are nothing less than wonderful, jinking the throw of the loop of the line which grazes their very shoulders, and turning and doubling in a thousand directions to escape justice, they meet at nightfall toenjoythe happiness of a home. The beefsteak, as it fries,gives out the ordinary sound, the plunk of the drawn cork is heard, and they narrate their hairbreadth escapes, their dangers, and their triumphs. They laugh, they sleep, but their enjoyment terminates with my knock at the door. The solitary inmate is wondering at the absence of the female without whom the word “domestic” becomes something like a mockery. It is needless to deny him affections; he has them, and she has them, as the tiger and the tigress have them. They don’t complain like other folk, because they don’t bark or growl at Providence; but the iron screw is in the heart. I have read its pangs in the very repression of its expression.
I had been so quick in my movements that I went right in upon my man just as he had entered, no doubt after the cautious doublings consequent upon our prior interview. The salutation given me was a growl of the wrath which had been seething in the Pappin’s digestor of his heart.
“What right have you to hound me in this way?” he cried, as he closed his fist and then ground his teeth.
“Why, Dan,” said I, calmly, “I’m still curious about the whiskers.”
“Whiskers again,” he roared.
“Aye, just the whiskers,” said I. “I have told you I am curious about them, and I want to know why you parted with what you seemed so proud of?”
“Gibe on; you’ll make nothing of me,” he cried again. “I defy you.”
“Well, but I cannot give up the whiskers in that easy way,” said I, “because I have an impression that if the lady in Leith had not lost her purse, your whiskers would still have clothed your cheeks.”
From which cheeks the colour fled in an instant. Even to the hardest of criminals the pinch of a fact is like the effect of a screw turned upon the heart. It is only we who can observe the changes of their expression. Dan knew, in short, that he was caught; and I have before remarked that the regular thieves can go through the business of a detection in a regular way.
“Well,” he said, as he felt the closing noose, and with even a kind of grim smile, “I might as well have kept my hair.”
“Never mind,” said I, “it will have time to grow in the jail. Come along. The cuffs?”
“Oh no, I think you have no occasion. Them things are only for the irregulars, you know. But do you think you’ll mend Daniel Gillies by the jail?”
“No,” said I, “I don’t expect it.”
“Then why do you intend to send me there?”
“Why,” replied I, in something like sympathy for one who I knew to be of those who are trained to vice before they have the choice of good or evil laid before them, “just because it is my trade.”
And, strange as it may seem, I observed a tear start into his red eye.
“Your trade,” said he, as he rubbed the cuff of his coat over his face, “your trade; and have you a better right to follow it than I have to pursue mine? You didn’t learn yours from your father and mother, did you?”
“No, Dan, but I know you did.”
“Yes, and the more’s the pity,” replied he, as he got even to an hysterical blubber. “I have had thoughts on the subject. Even when last in the Calton I could not sleep. Something inside told me I was wronged, but not by God—by man. I was trained by fiends who made money by what they taught me, and I have been pursued by fiends all my life. When was a good lesson ever given me, or a kindly word ever said to me, except by a preacher in the jail with a Bible in his hand? Suppose I had listened to him, and when I got out had taken that book into my hand, and had gone to the High Street and bawled out, ‘Put me to a trade, employ me, and give me wages.’ Who would have listened to me? A few pence from one, and the word ‘hypocrite’ from another, and then left to my old shifts, or starve. Take me up, but you’ll never mend me by punishment.”
I always knew Dan to be a clever fellow, but I was not prepared for this burst. Yet I knew in my heart it was true.“Well,” said I, “Dan, I pity you. I have often thought that if that old villain David, and that old Jezebel Meg, who were your parents, had not corrupted you, you had heart and sense to be a good boy.”
“Ay, and it has often wrung my heart,” he replied, “when I have seen others who were born near me, though only in Blackfriars’ Wynd, respectable and happy, and I a criminal in misery by the chance of birth; but all this is of no use now. Then where’s Bess, poor wretch?”
“She’s in Leith jail.”
“Right,” cried he, as he blubbered again. “I sent her there. She was a playmate of mine, and I led her on in the path into which I was led. She might have been as good as the best of them.”
And the poor fellow, throwing himself on a chair, cried bitterly.
I have encountered more than one of these scenes. They have only pained me, and seldom been of any service to the victims themselves. Were a thousand such cases sent up to the Privy Council, I doubt if their obduracy in endowing ragged and industrial schools would be in the slightest degree modified.
I believe little more passed. I had my duty to perform, and Dan was not disobedient. That same evening he was sent to Leith. He was afterwards tried. He was identified by the lady and a boy who knew him, and sentenced to twelve months. Bess got off on the plea of not proven. I lost all trace of them, but have no hopes thateither the one or the other was mended by the detection through the whiskers. The hair would grow again not more naturally than would spring up the old roots of evil planted by those who should have engrafted better shoots on the stock of nature.
IFthe Conglomerates of our old town are troubled with many miseries, as the consequences of their privations and vices, it is certain the whole squalid theatre they play their strange parts in, is the scene of more incidents, often humorous, nay romantic—if there can be a romance of low life—than can be found in the quiet saloons of the higher grades in the new town. The observation indeed is almost so trite, that I need not mention that while in the one case you have nature overlaid with the art of concealment, the slave of decorum, in the other you have the old mother, free, fresh, and frisky—her true characters, rapid movements, quick thoughts, intertwined plots, the jerks of passion, the humorous and the serious, the comedy and the melodrama of the tale of life—an idiot’s one, if you please, even in the grave ranks of the highest.
In February 1837, as I was on my saunter with my faithful Mulholland among the haunts of the old town, we observed our old friends Andrew Ireland, John Templeton, and David Toppen, doubling the mouth of one of the closes leading to Paul’s Work. These industriousgentry are never idle; as they carry their tools along with them, they can work anywhere; and, like the authors, a species of vagabonds who live on their wits, and steal one from another, they need no stock in trade. It was clear to me that we were unobserved, and proceeding down another close, I expected to meet them probably about their scene of action. I may mention that I was somewhat quickened in my movements by some recollections that Ireland had cost me a deal of trouble—the more by token that he was called “the Climber,” as being the best hand at a scramble, when cats would shudder, in all the city, for which he had refused for some time to give me even the pledge of his body. We got down the close and round the corner, just in the nick of time to see the tail of Andrew’s coat disappearing from the top of a pretty high dyke. The two others followed the example of the Climber, and when they had disappeared, we placed ourselves at the side of the wall to receive them on their descent. The cackling of fowls soon told us the nature of their work, and the gluggering of choking craigs was a clear indication that the robbers were acting on the old rule that “the dead tell no tales.”
“Sure of the Climber this time,” I said to my assistant. “I will seize Andrew and Templeton, and lay you hold of Toppen.”
And the words were scarcely out of my mouth, when we received gratefully our friends in our arms. The deadhens were flung away, and darting at the throats of my two charges, I secured them on the instant. Mulholland lost his hold, but so pleased was I at my capture, especially of Andrew, that I could not resist a few words in my old way.
“I was afraid you would fall and break your neck, Andrew,” said I.
“Thank you for the warm reception,” replied the cool rogue, as he recovered breath after the short tussle.
“No apology,” said I. “I have told you by a hundred looks that I wanted you.”
“And sold for a hen at last,” he added, with an oath.
“And not allowed to eat it,” said I. “What a glorious supper you and the old woman would have had!”
The taunt was at least due to his oath.
“Pick up the hens, Mulholland,” said I, “and let us march, we will have a laugh in the High Street.”
And proceeding with my man in each hand till I came to the head of the close, I gave one of them in charge of a constable, retaining the other. Mulholland with the hens brought up the rear, and I believe we cut a good figure in our march, if I could judge from the shouts of the urchins—tickled with a kind of walking anecdote, that carried its meaning so clearly in the face of it, for it is seldom that the booty makes its appearance in these processions.
On arriving at the Office, my charges were locked up.Toppen was caught the same evening; and this part of my story of the metamorphosis being so far prelusive, I may just say that my hen-stealers were forthwith tried by the Sheriff and a jury. Each got the price of his hen even at a higher rate than the present price of a fashionable cockerel—Ireland getting nine months, Templeton six, and Toppen four. But the Climber vindicated his great reputation in a manner that entitled him to still greater fame. Whether it was that the jailer was not made aware of his abilities, or that he was placed in a cell which it was held to be impossible for any creature without claws on all the four members to get out of, I cannot say; but true it is that, to the utter amazement of every one connected with the jail, Andrew Ireland got out by the skylight, and finding his way over ridges and down descents that might have defied an Orkney eagle-hunter, descended at the north back of the Canongate, and got clear off.
Once more “done” by my agile friend, my pride was up, and I must have him by hook or by crook. I knew he was one of those enchanted beings whose love to the old town prevents them from leaving it. It has such a charm for them that they will stick to it at all hazards, even when, day by day, and night by night, they are hounded through closes and alleys like wild beasts, and have, as it were, nowhere to lay their heads. I have known them sleep on the tops of houses, and in cranniesof old buildings, half-starved and half-clothed, in all weathers, summer or winter, rather than seek rest by leaving the scenes of their wild infancy. And all this they will do in the almost dead certainty that ultimately they will be seized. I was thus satisfied that Andrew was about the town; and even when, after the lapse of months, I could get no trace of him, I still retained my conviction that he was in hiding.
That conviction was destined to receive a grotesque and grim verification. I was one day at the top of Leith Wynd. A number of people were looking at the slow march of some poor wretch’s funeral, the coffin borne by some ragged Irishmen, a few others going behind. As I stood looking at the solemn affair—more solemn and impressive to right minds than the plumed pageant that leaves the mansion with the inverted shield, and goes to the vault where are conserved, with the care of sacred relics, the remains of proud ancestors—a poor woman, who seemed to have been among the mourners, came up to me.
“And do you see your work, now?” quoth she, in a true Irish accent. “Do you know who is in that white coffin there, wid the bit black cloth over it?”
“No,” said I.
“And you don’t know the darling you murthered for stealing a hen at Paul’s Work?”
“You don’t mean to say,” replied I, “that that’s the funeral of your son, Mrs Ireland?”
“Ay, and, by my soul, I do, and murthered by you. He never lifted up his head agin, but pined and dwined like a heart-broken cratur as he was; and now he’s there going as fast as the boys can carry him to his grave.”
“Well,” said I, “I am sorry for it.”
“The devil a bit of you, you vagabond! It’s all sham and blarney, and a burning shame to you, to boot.”
“Peace, Janet,” said I; “he’s perhaps happier now than he was here stealing and drinking. There are no sky-lights in the Canongate graves, and he’ll not climb out to do any more evil.”
“Sky-lights!” cried Janet; “ay, but there is, and Andrew Ireland will climb out and get to heaven, while you, you varmint, will be breaking firewood in h—to roast their honours the judges who condemned my innocent darling.”
“Quiet, Janet.”
“Well, thin, to roast yourself; will that plaise ye?”
“Yes, yes,” said I.
And fearing that the woman’s passions, inflamed by her grief, might reach the height of a howl, I moved away, while she, muttering words of wrath, proceeded after the white coffin. Nor can I say I was altogether comfortable as I proceeded to the Office, for there is something in the wild moving yet miserable lives of these Arabs of the wynds when wound up by death that is really touching. Nay, it is scarcely possible to avoid the thought that theyare not free agents, if they do not claim from our sympathy the character of victims. In truth I was getting muffish, if I did not soliloquise a bit about other climbers whose feet rested on the backs of such poor wretches, and who, by means not very different, get into high places, where they join the fashionable cry about philanthropy—yes, a philanthropy that helps the devil, by allowing him to brain the objects they attempt to benefit.
But a police-office soon takes the softness out of a man. I had scarcely entered when I got notice of a robbery, committed on the prior night at the workshop of Messrs Robb and Whittens, working silversmiths in Thistle Street. On repairing to the spot, I ascertained that the robber had made off with a number of silver articles, sugar-tongs, spoons, and other valuables; among the rest a number of silver screws. I particularly notice these, because they served my purpose in quite another way than that for which they were originally intended. But as to the manner of the robbery, I could get no satisfactory information beyond the fact that a suspicion attached to two chimney-sweeps, who had been passing in the morning, and had been employed to sweep the vents of the workshop; nor was my disappointment lessened by finding that the sweeps were utterly unknown to the parties connected with the shop. They could not even tell whether they came from the new town or the old. Then as to identification, even had I been angel enough to bringso unrecognisable a creature before them, who ever heard of any distinctive features in a chimney-sweep, if he has not a hump on his back or wants a nose on his face! Even I, who have seen through all manner of disguises, am often at fault with them until I almost rub noses with them—a process in which I would catch a “devilish sight” more than I wanted.
Notwithstanding these difficulties, I did not altogether despair, insomuch as I at least became pretty well satisfied that it really was the gentlemen in black who had done the deed. So wherever there was smoke to be cured and vents sweeped, I considered it my duty to call and try if I could find, not the features of my men, but some trace of the tongs and screws; for in many cases where I have had right to search, I have got my pipe lighted at a fire, the light of which has shewn me what I wanted. Yet all wouldn’t do; nor was I a whit more lucky among the brokers and pawn-shops. Nay, although Iscrewedmy ingenuity to the last turn, could I trace anything of the stolen silver screws. It was no go, as the lovers of slang say; and if it had not been that I was born never to know the meaning of “Give it up,” I would have renounced the pursuit of men who are beyond the landmarks of society.
Not altogether without a result, however, these vain searches. I was impressed with a curiosity about chimney-sweeps, and I never eyed one without a wish to knowsomething about him. They had formerly interested me very little; for, to do them justice, though they have means of entering houses seldom in the power of others, and which none but fiery lovers ever think of, they have seldom qualified themselves for my attentions. They have no likings for the whitewashing processes of jails. At the same time, however, as cleanliness is next to godliness, they seldom appear in church; the grace would not pay the soap.
With this affection for the tribe still hanging about me, I was one day, a considerable period after the robbery, going along the Pleasance, in an expedition connected with the house called the Castle of Clouts, where I expected to find some remnants not left by the builder of that famous pile. I was not looking for sweeps, and yet my pipe was not out. I had been blowing some puffs, when, on turning round, I saw two of my black gentlemen standing smoking loungingly, with their backs to the wall. “Ah, some of the bright creatures of my fancy,” thought I; “yea, those aerial beings who for months have been hovering over me in my dreams, yet altogether without wings.” My first act was to put that same pipe out, my next to watch their movements. They were very busy talking to each other; but what interested me most was the curiosity with which they were contemplating some articles which one of them was shewing to the other,—nay, there seemed to be a silvery lookabout the things, which was the more apparent that they were a contrast to the hands that held them.
So straightway my pipe, which I had extinguished, required a light, and these curers of smoke could even produce that which they professed to banish. In a moment I was standing before them.
“Well, lads,” said I, “can you give me a light?”
One of them recoiled a little as he caught my eye. He seemed to know me, though I am free to confess I did not know him.
“To be sure,” said the other.
And striking a match upon the wall he handed me a light, whereupon I began to puff away; and as smoking is a social act, I found myself irresistibly attracted by my friend, who in my first going up appeared to be so shy.
“Do you know where the Castle of Clouts is?” said I, as I peered and peered into the dark face of him who tried to avoid my gaze.
But I was still at fault. His features were familiar to me, but the soot still came between me and my identification. At length I got my clue.
“Andrew Ireland,” said I, “when did you come out of the Canongate churchyard? Was there a skylight in the top of the coffin?”
“Andrew Stewart is my name,” replied the black ghost.
“And when did you turn sweep, Andrew?”
“When seven years old,” said he; “but I tell you my name is Stewart, and be d——d to you.”
“Well, I don’t apprehend names,” said I, “only bodies. Then I’m not sure if you are not a spirit, for Janet shewed me your coffin on its way to the Canongate.”
“Perhaps it was Andrew Ireland’s coffin you saw,” said he. “It wasn’t mine, anyhow.”
“Oh, I see,” said I, “it would be Andrew Stewart’s, and I have committed a mistake. No matter; I want to know what you have in your right coat-pocket.”
And at the same instant I held up my hand. My assistant was presently at my side. I saw by the fire of his eye—something like a chimney on fire—that he was bent on resistance, and instantly taking him by the neckcloth with my right hand, I was proceeding to plunge my left into his pocket, when he seized me with his wonted ferocity, and for his pains got himself laid on his back.
“Now, Andrew,” said I, as he lay grinning at me so like another black gentleman when angry, “as sure as you are your mother’s darling, I will take you up and throw you again if you are not peaceable, and behave yourself like a gentleman.”
And getting my assistant to hold him, I took from his pocket three silver screws. It was all up with my ghost, who almost instantly became as gentle as these creatures, even the real white kind, generally are. He got up, andwe proceeded to the Office. Nor did all the parts of this remarkable case end here, for, as we passed along St Mary’s Wynd, whom should we meet but Janet Ireland. The moment she saw us, she appeared stupified.
“He is risen again, Janet,” said I, in a kind of whisper, “they forgot to fasten the coffin with the silver screws.”
“And the more shame yours, you thaif of a thousand,” she cried, “to steal the darling boy of a poor widow. Dead! isn’t he worse than dead when in the hands of the biggest scoundrel that ever walked the airth?”
And what, in addition to this ingenuous turn which Janet gave to the story of the white coffin, Janet said or roared, I cannot tell, for we hurried away to avoid a gathering crowd.
I will never forget the look of the Superintendent when I told him that the man before him was the dead and buried Andrew Ireland, the stealer of the hens, the climber through the skylight of the jail, and the robber of the silversmiths’ shop. What puzzled him most was, how, with the conviction on my mind that the lad was dead and buried, I could have recognised him through the soot. He looked at him again and again, nor could he say that, with the minutest investigation, he could say that he recognised the well-known thief who had cost us so much trouble.
Andrew was tried for the escape from prison as well as for the robbery; and that the judges did not think he was the short-lived person described by Janet, appears from the judgment, which condemned him to fourteen years’ transportation.
IDOUBTwhether the good philanthropical people are even yet quite up to all the advantages of ragged schools. The salvation of society from a host of harpies is not the main chance; neither is it that the poor wretches are sold into the slavery of vice and misery before they know right from wrong. There’s something more. I have a suspicion that society loses often what might become its sharpest and most intelligent members in these half-starved youngsters, whose first putting out of the hand is the beginning of a battle with the world. I’m not to try to account for the fact, but I am pretty well satisfied, from all I have seen, that the children of these poor half-starved people are something more apt than the sons of your gentlemen. You who are learned may try your hand at the paradox, and make as much of it as you do of the other riddles of human life. Here is a plea for the John Poundses and Dr Guthries, of which they could make something. Every ragged urchin they lay hold of to make him learn from books has been at a school of another kind, where he has got his energies sharpened on a different whetstone fromthat found within a school, and then the school does its duty in directing these energies.
Just fancy what some of our card-sharpers would have been if their cleverness had been directed towards honest and lawful undertakings. I have known some of these gentlemen so adroit at the great problem of ways and means that they might have shone as Chancellors of the Exchequer. It is not their fault that we find them out. Their great drawback is, that they begin to be cunning and adroit before they know the world. All this close cunning defeats itself. The young rogues put me often in mind of moles. They work in dark holes, but they are always coming near the surface, where they hitch up friable hillocks to let air in, and so are caught. Nay, they sometimes hitch themselves out into the mid-day sun of justice. I have at this moment two or three of these misdirected geniuses in my eye whom I have traced from early childhood—ay, that period when the Raggedier officers should have laid hold of them.
In April 1854, an honest joiner in Banff of the name of Donald M‘Beath, had taken it into his head that he would do well to go to England, where his talents would be appreciated. In short, Donald had working within him the instinct of that little insect so familiar to the Highlanders, the tendency of which is to go south—probably because it knows in some inscrutable way that Englishmen have thick blood. Then he had friends in Newcastle who hadgone before him, and found out that the yellow blood corpuscles of the social body flowed there more plentifully than in Banff. Were I to be more fanciful, I would say that Donald M‘Beath had the second sight—for money. He loved it so well that he had stomach for “ta hail Pank of England,” and would “maype return in ta grand coach and ta grey horses.” Nor had this love been as yet without fruits, for he had by Highland penury saved no less a sum than seven pounds, all stowed away in a sealskin spleuchan, besides seven more which he had laid out on a capital silver watch—convinced that no Highland shentleman bearing a royal name, as he did, could pass muster in England without this commodity.
The Highlanders were never at any time in the habit of getting lighter or leaner by moving from one place to another, if they were not generally a good deal heavier at the end of their journey than at the beginning. So true to the genius of his race, he laid his plans so that, in progressing south, he would lay contributions on his “friends” all the way, in order that, if it “could pe possible,” he might keep the seven pounds all entire—some extra shillings being provided for the voyage in theBritanniafrom Leith to Newcastle. How many Highland cousins suffered during this transport of the valuable person of the King’s clansman till he got to Leith, I never had any means of knowing. We cannot be far wrong, however, in supposing that he shook them allheartily by the hand; and no pedigree of the M‘Farlans from Parlan downwards, was ever courted with more industry than that of the M‘Beaths, if it was possible to bring within the tree any collateral branch with M‘Beath blood in his veins, meal in his girnal, and a bed fit for a Highlander. Then the shake of the hand, and the “Oigh, oigh” of true happiness, were the gratitude which is paid beforehand—the only kind that Donald knew anything of; or any other body I suspect—at least if I can judge from what I have received from so many to whom I have given lodgings, meat, and free passages.
Arrived at Leith, the first thing Donald did was to get out the little bit of snuff-coloured paper which contained the names of the cousins, and where, among the rest, was that of an old woman in the Kirkgate who was a descendant of the sister of Donald’s grandmother, a Macnab,—as unconscious of being related to the clan of the murderous king as any one could be, before such a flood of light was cast upon her history as Donald was well able to shed. He soon found her out; and though Janet Macnab could make nothing of the pedigree, she could count feelings of humanity; and what was more, she had a supper and a bed to save an infraction upon the said seven pounds.
Next morning, after having partaken of a Highland breakfast from poor Janet, which could only be calculated by the professions of eternal friendship uttered by a Gael, Donald went forth to see the craft which in some cheapberth was to transport him to the land of gold; and, to be sure, it was not long till he saw the vessel lying alongside of the quay. No doubt she was to be honoured in her freight. It was not every day theBritanniacarried a M‘Beath with seven pounds in his pocket, a seven-pound watch in his fob, and a chest of tools, which was to cut his way to fortune. Then if it were just possible that the captain had ever been in Banff, or had in his veins a drop of Celtic blood—he would ascertain that by and by, he might even be a M‘Beath or a M‘Nab.
Much, however, as he expected from the clanship of the captain of theBritannia, who was not then to be seen, he had sense enough to know that that officer could not abate his passage-money. Nay, he knew that he must take out his ticket at the office on the shore, and thither he accordingly hied to make a bargain. Unfortunately these tickets are not liable to be affected by Highland prigging; but the loose shillings to which I have alluded allowed him still to retain untouched the seven pounds. Yea, that seven pounds seemed to have a charmed life, the charm being only to be broken by some such wonder as the march of some wood or forest from one part of the kingdom to the other, or by the man who should try to take it having been from the belly of a shark “untimely ript.”
It wanted still some considerable time until theBritanniasailed, and Donald thought that he might as wellget his chest of tools and bag of clothes put on board. He accordingly hied away to Mrs M‘Nab’s, and having returned his thanks for her kindness, if he did not promise her a part of his fortune “when it should be made,” he got the packets on his broad shoulders, and proceeded to the vessel. He was more lucky this time. A seaman, very probably the captain, was busy walking the deck.
“Hallo, tare!” cried Donald to the seaman, “you’ll pe ta captain?”
“Yes, all right,” replied the other; “and you’ll be a passenger for Newcastle; what have you got there?”
“My tool-chest and clothes,” replied Donald; “fery valuable, cost seven pounds ten shillings.”
“Heave them along the gunwale there,” said the seaman, “they can be stowed away afterwards; but you’re too soon, we wont heave off for an hour.”
“Ower sune is easy mended,” replied the Gael.
“And sometimes,” in a jolly way, said the other, “we have time for a dram.”
“Ay, and inclination maype too,” cried Donald, quite happy.
“Come away, then, our lockers are shut, so we’ll have it up the way, where I know they keep the real peat-reek, and I’ll pay.”
And Donald, leaving his luggage, but carrying with him a notion that the captain of theBritanniadeserved to be one of her Majesty’s Admirals of the Blue, followed hisguide until they entered the house of the publican, whose name I do not at present recollect. Nor was this notion in any way modified even when they were seated at the same table with three very respectable-looking men, apparently engaged in the harmless pastime of playing at cards. Nay, the notion was evidently shared by the three strangers, who, although they had clearly never seen the captain of theBritanniabefore, offered him, with a generosity wonderful to Donald, a share of their liquor. On his side, the generosity was equalled by his insisting that they, whom he declared he had never seen before, should take a part of his. Never was there such generous unanimity among strangers; and even Donald was included in the new-born friendship. Then the harmless play went on. There were only three cards used, two diamonds and one clubs; and the game was so simple that the Gael understood it in a moment, for it consisted in a little shuffling, and if one drew the clubs, he was the winner of the stakes. The generous captain laid down a stake of a pound; one of the players laid down another; then the cards were shuffled in so obvious a manner that a child might have seen where the clubs lay; and so to be sure the captain saw what a child might have seen, drew the slip, and pocketed the two pounds. This was repeated, until the captain pocketed six pounds; and Donald seeing fortune beckoning on, tabled one of the seven with the charmed unity. None of these men hadbeen cut out of the belly of a shark, and so Donald M‘Beath’s seven was made eight.
“Play on,” whispered the captain, “while I go to look after your luggage.”
And so to be sure the Highlander did. He staked pound after pound, gained once in thrice, got furious, and staked on and on till the seven was nil.
Then rose the Highlander’s revenge; the watch was tabled against seven pounds, and went at a sweep.
“And now, py Cot, to croon a’, taPritanniawill be gone,” he cried, as he rushed out in agony.
Frantic as he was, he could yet find his way to the part of the pier where he expected to see the vessel with the noble captain on board. The steamer was gone; and as he stood transfixed in despair, a man came up to him.
“Was it you who carried some luggage on board theBritanniaabout an hour ago?”
“Ay, just me.”
“Well, then, I saw a man dressed in seaman’s clothes carry it away. He seemed to make for Edinburgh, likely by the Easter Road.”
“And whaur is ta Easter Road?” cried the Gael, as he turned round to run in some direction, though in what he knew not.
At length, after many inquiries, he got into the said road, and hurrying along at the top of his speed, he expectedevery moment to see the captain. He questioned every one he met, got no trace, and began to lose hope with breath; for, long ere this, he had seen the full scope of his folly, and suspected that the captain was one of the cardsharpers. Fairly worn out,—more the consequence of the excited play of his lungs and galloping blood than the effect of his chase,—he slackened his pace when he came to the Canongate. There he was—a ruined man, not a penny left, the hopes of a fortune blasted, even his tool-chest, with which he might have cut his way anywhere, gone,—a terrible condition, no doubt, not to be even conceived properly by those who have not experienced the shock of sudden and total ruin. No sight had any interest for him, no face any beauty or ugliness, except as it carried any feature like what he recollected of his cruel and heartless companions. Nor was he free from self-impeachment, blaming his love of money as well as the blindness of his credulity. While in this humour, and making his way by inquiry to the Police-office, he met right in the face, and seemed to spring up three inches as he detected the features of one of his spoilers. In an instant, his hand clutched, with the tension of a tiger’s muscle, the gasping throat of the villain. The Highland blood was boiling, and you might have seen the red glare of his eye, as if all his revenge for what he considered to be the ruin of a life had been concentrated in that one terrible glance. The sharper, strong,and with all the recklessness of a tribe of the most desperate kind, was only as a sapling in his grasp.
“My money and my watch, you tam villain!”
Words which, accompanied by the contortion of Gaelic gesticulation, only brought about him a crowd, among whom two constables made their appearance. The sharper was transferred to their hands, glad enough to be relieved of his more furious antagonist, and all the three made for the Office.
It was at this part of the strange drama I came into play. The moment I saw the Highlander enter with his man, I suspected the nature of the complaint, for I knew he was from the country, and the sharper, David Wallace, was one of my most respectedprotégésin the card and thimblerigging line; but I required the information given me by the Highlander to make me understand all the dexterity of the trick which the pseudo-captain of theBritanniahad practised. The club, I knew, consisted of four, David Wallace, Richard Kyles, John Dewar, and John Sweeny. It was regularly organised, each man having attached to him his gillet of a helpmate, ready to secrete or carry the watches and other property won by their lords at this most unequal game. I have always considered those daylight sharpers, who, without instruments other than three cards or three thimbles and a pea, contrive to levy extensive contributions on society, as men worthy to have been drawn into the ranks of honest citizens,where their talents could not have failed to elevate them into wealth. Even the manipulation of these simple instruments is more wonderful than the tricks of a conjurer. Fix your eyes as you may, be suspicious even to certainty that the player is cheating you, I will defy you to detect the moment when, by the light if not elegant touch of the finger, your pea has been slipped from the right thimble to the wrong, or the right card to the wrong—yea, to the end, you could swear that no deception has been or could be practised upon you; and even when your watch is forfeited you could hardly think but that your misfortune lay on some defect in your power of penetration. And so it does. You are cheated—nay,fairly cheated. You can’t expect from such men that they should undertake not to deceive you. If they had no art, you would ruin them in five minutes, for all you would have to do (and you insist on the unfair privilege) is to watch the thimble under which your fortune lies and snatch it. There is, therefore, no pity due to the victims of these men’s deceptions, and this we can say with a thorough condemnation of the men themselves.
As soon as I understood the transaction, it was my duty to detect the right thimble, and I had no fear of deception. I sent Wallace, under charge of a constable, to the Leith Office, and told M‘Beath that I would have the three others there in the course of a couple of hours. I had no doubt that Dewar, the cleverest of them, had personatedthe captain, and that he had rejoined his associates to share the booty. I knew their haunt, a public-house in Bristo Street, and, taking Riley with me, I went direct to the place. My luck was nothing less than wonderful. Just as I entered I met my three men coming out of a room, and holding out my arms—
“Stop, gentlemen,” said I; “I have got something to say to you.”
But I didn’t need to say it. They understood me as well as I did them.
“Captain Dewar of theBritannia,” said I, looking to Dewar.
“At your service,” replied the rogue, with a spice of humour, at which, in the very midst of their choking wrath, they could not help leering.
Well, the old process. “Search,” said I; “I want seven pounds and a watch.”
And calling in my assistant, I began my search. No resistance. They were too well up to their calling.
I found the watch on Wallace. No more. The pounds had been given to the fancies.
I kept my word by having them all three at Leith within a couple of hours, safely lodged in prison. They were afterwards tried by the Leith magistrates, aided by an assessor, and sentenced to sixty days each, with sixty more if they did not give up the money and luggage. The sentence seemed judicious, and in one sense it was; but theworthy bailies did not consider that they were offering a premium on the seductive and depredating energies of the trulls, who (long after the seven pounds was spent) in order to get their birds out of the cage, set about their arts and redeemed them from bondage.
YOUwill have perceived that among my mysteries I have never had anything to do with dreams or dream-mongers. My dreams have been all of that peep-o’-day kind when a man is “wide awake” as they say, and “up to a thing or two.” Not to say that I disbelieve in dreams when they have a streak of sunlight in them, as all veritable ones have. Nor is the strange case I am about to relate free from the suspicion that the dream which preceded a terrible act, was just a daylight feeling reflected from some dark corner of the brain.
In 1835, I met one morning, as I was going to commence the duties of the day, William Wright, shoemaker in Fountain Close. He had been drinking the evening before, for his eyes were red and swollen, and he had the twittering about the tumified top of the cheeks, which shews that the inflammation is getting vent. There was some wildness in his look, and, as it afterwards appeared, something in his talk with a deeper meaning than I could comprehend.
“You have had more than enough last night, William,” said I.
“Why, yes,” replied he, “James and I had a bout, and I am off work for an hour or two till my hand steadies.”
“Better for you and your wife if your hand was always steady,” said I, as I made a movement to walk on.
“Do you believe in dreams?”
“Some,” replied I, meaning the streaked ones I have alluded to. “Why do you put that question?”
“Because,” replied he, “I am quite disturbed this morning by one I had last night. I thought that James Imrie stabbed me with the knife I cut my leather with.”
“But James hasn’t done it yet, has he?”
“No, but I awoke as angry at him as if he had; and though I have come out to get a mouthful of fresh air, I can’t get quit of my wrath.”
“Angry at a dream,” said I, as I looked into William’s scowling face. “I thought we had all quite enough to be angry at, without having recourse to dreams.”
“Ay, but I can’t help it,” said he again; “I have been trying to shake it off, but it won’t do.”
“It will fly off with the whisky fever, William,” said I. “James and you are old friends, and you mustn’t allow a dream to break your friendship.”
“Wouldn’t like that either,” was the reply. “He’s a good-natured creature, and I like him; but I can’t get quitof his visage as he stuck the knife into me. It has haunted me all the morning.”
“So that you would reverse the dream, and make it true bycontraries, as the old ladies do, when they can’t get things to fit—by sticking the knife intohim?”
“No, I wouldn’t feel it in my heart to stab the best friend I have,” said he; and looking wistfully into my face with his bloodshot eyes, he added, “But maybe a glass with James will wear it off.”
“Yes, of pure spring water from the Fountain well there,” said I.
“I never was very fond of water,” said he, with a kind of grim smile, “nor is it very fond of me. One can’t talk over it.”
“Your old political twists, William,” said I, as I recollected a curious theory he sported everywhere, and was rather mad upon.
“Oh, but I don’t hate James for opposing me in that. I rather like him the better for it. We get fun out of it.”
“The more reason,” said I, “for you to give up your ill-natured fancy. Stab you!—why, man, James Imrie is so inoffensive a creature, that, though a flesher’s runner, he wouldn’t flap a fly that blows his beef, unless it were a very tempting bluebottle.”
“I believe it,” said he, looking a little more calm; “and I will try to forget the face. I will be better after my breakfast.”
So I left William to his morning meal, suspecting that there would be a dram before it, thinking too of the strange fancy that had taken possession of him, but never dreaming that anything would come of it. It was sometime afterwards that the thread of the story again recurred to my mind, and what I have now to relate was derived from a conversation I had with Wright himself at a time when he was likely to speak the truth. I cannot answer for every word of the conversation I am to report, but I have little doubt that the substance comes as near the thing as other recitals of the same kind, recorded a considerable time after they have occurred.
It appeared that James Imrie, according to his old habit, and without knowing anything of William’s dream, had left his house in Skinner’s Close, and gone to his friend’s, for the purpose of having a crack and a spark. William, who was at the time busy with a job of cobbling which he had promised to finish that night, received his friend with all his usual warmth, but, what was strange enough, without saying a word of his dream. James sat at a little side-table near William’s stool, and some whisky was produced, according to their old fashion; for the shoemaker, like other political cobblers, liked nothing better than to spin his politics and take his dram while he was plying his awl and rosin-end. So scarcely had the first glass been swallowed, when William got upon his hobby—“The five acres and the thousandpounds” doctrine as he used to call it, and which the reader will understand as the conversation progresses. Poor James was no great adept at the sublime mystery that, like Fourier’s, was to regenerate the world, and make every snob and flesher’s runner as happy as the denizens of Paradise; and therefore, with his tardy thoughts and slow Scotch pronunciation, was no match for his book-read and voluble antagonist; but he was a good “butt,” and that was all probably that Wright cared for—his sole ambition being to speak and to be heard speaking by any one, however unable to understand the extent of his learning.
“There now,” began William, “I have been reading in theScotsmanto-day that the Duke of Buccleuch has a thousand a-day. Good Lord! just think, if all the land possessed by this one man, made of clay no finer than the potter’s, and maybe not so well turned, was divided into ploughgates, how many poor people would be lairds, and rendered happy.”
“But if we were a’ lairds,” drawled James, “wha wad mak’ the shoon and rin wi’ the beef?”
“They would make their own shoes out of their own leather, and rear their own beef,” was the triumphant reply. “Then, people say I’m for French equality. I’m not. The idiots don’t understand the ‘five acres and thousand pounds’ doctrine. No man should have more than that quantity of land, or that sum of money. The overplus should be taken from him and divided.”
“It looks weel,” replied James, with a good-natured smile; “but how would it work? It puts me in mind o’ Laird Gilmour’s plan wi’ his snuff. ‘Let every prudent man ken,’ said he, ‘that there’s twa hundred pinches in half an unce; and let him keep count as he taks every pinch, and his nose will never cheat him, and he’ll never cheat his nose.’ I’ve tried it, but I aye lost count.”
“Nonsense, man! You’re just like the rest, trying to crack a joke at the expense of a grand scheme for benefiting our species. You forget that under our present idiotic system a poor man cannot often get his half ounce to divide into pinches, whereas under the ‘five acres and thousand punds’ doctrine you could rear your own tobacco, dry it, make Taddy of it, and then snuff it, without the necessity of your arithmetic.”
“And mak’ our ain whisky tae,” rejoined James, “and get a’ drunk?”
“No,” responded the theorist. “We might certainly distil our own whisky, but not get all drunk. Drunkenness is the consequence of our present system, where poverty makes misery, and misery flies to the bottle, and where bloated wealth produces epicures, who disdain whisky, but wallow in wine from morning to night.”
“And yet they’re no ill chields, thae grand folk, after a’,” said James. “Mony a shilling I get when my basket’s emptied. It comes a’ round. If they get, they gie; and they’re no unmindfu’ o’ the puir.”
“I’m poor,” cried the cobbler; “do they mind me? No. They grind me down to a farthing, and are ready to say, when I support the rights of labour, ‘Well, labour then, and be paid; and when you can’t work, you have the workhouse between you and starvation.’ And yet I have a soul as noble as theirs.”
“And nobler,” said James, with his quiet humour; “for you would mak’ a paradise o’ the world, and every ane o’ us an angel, without wings; but we wouldna’ need wings, for wha would think o’ fleeing out o’ paradise?”
“Your old mockery, James,” said Wright, a little touched. “The great problem of the happiness of mankind is not a subject for ridicule.”
“It’s yoursel’ that’s making the fun,” rejoined his friend. “I was only using your ain words. But could we no speak about something else than the ‘five acres and thousand pounds’ doctrine? I never could comprehend it.”
“And never can,” was the tart reply. “You haven’t capacity. It requires deep thought to solve the problem of human happiness, and you needn’t try; but you might listen to instruction.”
“I have listened lang aneugh,” said the other, alike ruffled in his turn, “and it comes aye to the same knotted thrum. Ye canna mak a gude job o’t by slicing aff the lords and the puir. Ye might as weel try to fancy a sheep wi’ nae mair body than a king’s-hood and sometrollops, without head or trotters.” And James laughed good-naturedly.
“Gibes again,” retorted Wright, as (according to his account to me) the vision of the dream came before him, and the anger which had accompanied it flared upon his heart.
But he wrestled with it, occasionally looking at his friend, whom he really loved, yet still fancying that the face of that friend, however illuminated with the good humour probably inspired by the whisky, might or would assume the demoniac expression it carried when he dreamed that he had stabbed him to the heart. It signified little that James was smiling,—the other expression would return when the smile left. It was embodied in the muscles. It appeared as a phantasm, and the strength of a morbid imagination gave it form and expression.
“Yes, the old gibes.”
“No,” replied James; “I canna jibe wi’ an auld freend. But to end a’ this just never speak mair o’ the new paradise.”
“Worse and worse!” cried Wright. “You despise a subject that ought to interest all people. What are you who laugh at the idea of being made a proprietor of the rights of man—a poor wretch, who makes a shilling a-day by carrying beef, and licks the hand that gives you a penny, which by the rights of nature belongs to you;for is it not robbed from you by your masters, who have made a forceful division of property, and then you scoff at the man who would right you. I say, man, you’re a born idiot.”
A word this that changed James’s face into as much of ill-nature as the poor fellow’s naturally good and simple heart would permit. Wright at that moment looked at him. He saw, as he thought, the very countenance of the stabber, and his heart burned again, his eye flashed, and he instinctively grasped the knife in his hand. The fit lasted for a moment and went off, and the conversation was renewed at a point where I break off my narrative, to resume it when Wright gave me the parting words.
All this time I was in my own house. It would be, I think, about nine o’clock when I left to go up the High Street. I saw a number of people collected at the mouth of the Fountain Close, and heard dreadful cries of murder from the high windows of a house a little way down the entry. I was not thinking of Wright, and pushing the people aside, I was beginning to make my way down, when up the close comes running a man in his shirt-sleeves. I caught him in an instant in my arms, while the people were crying wildly, the women screaming, “Take care of the knife!”
And to be sure the knife was in his hand,all bloody.
“Wright!” cried I, as I wrenched the weapon from him.
“Ay, Wright,” replied he; “I have murdered James,” and then drawing a deep sigh he added, in choking accents, “Oh, that dream!”
Holding him tight I got him from amongst the crowd for indeed at the time I thought him mad. In leading him up I began to recollect the story he had told me before. I wished to speak, but when I turned to him I beheld such a wild distortion of features that I shrunk from increasing his agony. I heard him groaning, every groan getting into the articulation, “My friend,” “My best friend,” “Surely I am mad,” “Take care of me, M‘Levy—I’m a maniac.” I didn’t think so now, yet I was upon my guard; and, as he was a strong man, I got a constable to take him by the other arm.
On arriving at the Office, which we did in the midst of a dense crowd, among whom the word “murder” sped from mouth to mouth, making open lips and wide staring eyes, I led him in. The moment he entered, he flung himself on a seat, and covering his eyes with his hands sent forth gurgling sounds, as if his chest were convulsed—rolling meanwhile from side to side, striking his head on the back of the seat, and still the words, “James, James, my old friend—O God! what is this I have brought upon me?”
“Is Imrie dead?” said I, watching him narrowly.
“Dead!” he cried, with a kind of wild satire, even light as a madman’s laugh; “up to the heft in his bowels.”
“Was it connected with the dream, William?” I said again; “why, it was James should have stabbed you.”
“The dream,” he ejaculated, as if his spirit had retired back into his heart; “the dream—ay, the dream. It was that—it was that.”
“How could that be?” I said again, for I was in a difficulty.
“His face, the very face he had when, in my dream, he plunged my own knife in me, has haunted me ever since. I told you that morning it was with me. I could not get rid of it, and when I saw him to-night sitting by me, I observed the same scowl. I thought he was going to seize my knife and stab me. I thought I would prevent him by being before him, and plunged the knife into his body.”
“Terrible delusion,” said I. “Imrie, as I told you, couldn’t have hurt a fly.”
“Too late, too late,” he groaned. “I know it now, and, what is worst of all, I’m not mad; I feel I am not, and I must be hanged. Nothing else will satisfy my mind—I have said it. If not, I will destroy myself—lend me my knife.”
“No, no,” said I, “no murders here; but perhaps James is not dead—he may recover.”
“Why do you say that?” he cried, as he slipt off the chair, and took me by the knees; “who knows that? has any one seen him to tell you? I would give the worldand my existence to know that he has got one remnant of life in him;” and then he added, as his head fell upon his chest, “Alas! it is impossible. I took too good care of that. It would have done for one of his master’s oxen.”
“Imrie’s not dead,” said a constable, as he came forward; “they’ve taken him to the Infirmary.”
I have seen a criminal with his whole soul in his ear as the jury took their seats, and seen his eye after the transference of his spirit from the one organ to the other, as he heard the words “Not guilty.” So appeared Wright. He rose up, and again seating himself, while his eye was still fixed on the bearer of good news, he held up his hands in an attitude of prayer, and kept muttering words which I could not hear.
On leading him to the cell, where he was in solitude to be left for the night, I could not help thinking, as I have done on other occasions, that the first night is the true period of torture to such a one as Wright, with remorse in his heart. I suspect we cannot picture those agonies of the spirit except by some comparisons with our experiences of pain; but as pain changes its character with every pang, as it responds to the ever-coming and varying thoughts, our efforts are simply ineffectual. We give a shudder, and fly to some other thought for relief. To a sufferer such as Wright, we can picture only one alternative—the total renunciation of the spirit to God; and howwonderfully the constitution of the mind is suited to this, the deepest remorse finding the readiest way where we would think it might be reversed. It is impossible to rid one’s-self of the conviction from this strange fact alone, that Christianity, which harmonises with this instinct, so to call it, comes from the God of the instinct. It seemed to me that Wright would, in the ensuing night, find the solace he seemed to yearn for. He had already got some hope; and becoming calm, I sat down beside him for a short time, for I had known him as a decent, hard-working fellow, incapable, except under some frenzy, of committing murder. I got from him the conversation with Imrie, which I have given partly, I doubt not, in that incorrect way, as to the set form of words, inseparable from such narratives.
“When I called James an idiot,” he continued, “I saw the expression, as I thought, coming over his face, and I had the feeling I had in my dream, but I soon saw the old smile there again, and was soon reconciled.
“ ‘Weel, maybe I am an idiot,’ said James, ‘for I’ve been aye dangling my bonnet in the presence o’ customers, when maybe if I had clapt it on my head wi’ a gude thud o’ my hand, and said, “I’m as gude as you,” and forced my way i’ the warld, I wouldna, this day, be ca’d Jamie Imrie, the flesher’s porter.’
“And the good soul smiled again, so we took another glass of the whisky,—a good thing when it works in a goodheart, but a fearful one when it rouses the latent corruption of a bad one. I fear it wrought so with me, for although we were old friends, I got still moodier, thinking more and more of my dream, while James became more humorous.
“ ‘But, Willie, my dear Willie,’ he said, ‘idiot as I may be, I doot if I would ha’e been better under your system, for I would ha’e been a daft laird o’ five acres, and gi’en awa’ my snuff and my whisky, and maybe my turnips, to my freends, and got in debt and been a bankrupt proprietor; so, just to be plain wi’ you, and I’ve thought o’ tellin’ ye this afore nou, I would recommend you to gi’e up this new-fangled nonsense o’ yours, or rather, I should say, auld-fangled, for you’ve been at it since ever I mind. Naebody seems to understand it, and here’s a bit o’ a secret,’ lowering his voice, ‘the folks lauch at ye when you’re walking on the street, and say, “There’s the political cobbler that’s to cobble up society.”’