on my knees, shall I daily offer up prayers to heaven for thy safety and prosperity. Oh refuse me not!–refuse me not, General, as thou thyself hopest for mercy from thy God in the hour of retribution!” And she wildly grasped the knees of the republican commander.
Without saying a word, Cromwell gently disengaged himself from the fair suppliant, and, turning his back upon her, stalked to the further end of the apartment, seemingly much agitated.
On gaining the extremity of the room, Cromwell stood for two or three minutes, still keeping his back to Lady Rae, with arms folded, and drooping his head, as if musing deeply. At the expiry of this period, he suddenly turned round, and advancing towards his fair visitor with quick and hurried step, said–
“My Lady Rae, may the Lord direct me in this matter and in all others. I have been communing with myself anent your petition; truly have I, but see not that I can serve thee; I cannot indeed. If we would all walk in the straight path, we had need to walk warily; for in this matter I cannot help thee, seeing my Lord Rae is a State prisoner, and I have no power over him; none, truly, none whatever. The law is strong, and may not be trifled with. But I will consider, fair lady, indeed will I; I will seek direction and counsel in the matter from on high. I will do so this night; I will have this night to think of the matter, and thou wilt call upon me at this hour to-morrow, and I will then see if the Lord will vouchsafe me any light as to how I may assist thee and thy poor husband; for on thy account I would do so if I could.”
Confused, and all but wholly unintelligible, as was this address of Cromwell’s, Lady Rae perceived that it contained a gleam of comfort, that a ray of hope-inspiring light, however feeble, played through its obscurity; and, satisfied with this, she urged her suit no further, but, with a thankful acceptance of the Parliamentary general’s invitation to her to wait upon him on the following day, she withdrew.
On Lady Rae issuing from Cromwell’s lodgings, she stood in the street, gazing around her for an instant, as if looking for some one whom she had expected to find waiting her, but who was not at the moment in sight. This was the case; but it was only for a moment that she was so detained. She had glanced but two or three times around her, when she was joined by a personage of very striking appearance. This was a huge Highlander, considerably above six feet in stature, proportionably stout and well made, and apparently of enormous strength. He was dressed in the full costume of his country, and armed to the teeth. By his side depended a tremendous claymore; in his belt were stuck a dagger and a brace of pistols; and on his shoulder rested that formidable weapon called a Lochaber axe.
The countenance of this tremendous personage was in keeping with his other charms: it was manly, and decidedly handsome, but withal was marked with an expression of fierceness that was appalling to look upon; and was thus calculated, when associated with his gigantic figure, to inspire at once admiration and fear.
As this formidable personage approached Lady Rae, he touched his bonnet with an air of the most profound respect, and assumed a look and attitude of devoted attention to her commands.
“I have seen him, John,” said Lady Rae, addressing her Goliath of an attendant, who was neither more nor less than a retainer of Lord Rae’s, but one who stood high in the estimation of both the former and the latter for his fidelity, and, fierce as he looked, for the gentleness of his nature. John M’Kay–for such was his name–was, in short, an especial favourite of both Lord and Lady Rae, and was admitted to a degree of confidence and familiarity that elevated him much above his real condition. They were proud, too, of his superb figure, and delighted to exhibit him in the full dress of his country, as a specimen of the men which it produced. “I have seen him, John,” said Lady Rae, whose protector and attendant John always was when she went forth on occasions of business of importance like the present.
“And what he’ll say, my letty?” inquired John in a low and gentle tone, and stopping to catch Lady Rae’s communication.
“Not much that is quite satisfactory, John. He speaks in a strange style, but I think there is ground of hope. He did not altogether refuse the prayer of my petition, but bade me call upon him again to-morrow.”
John looked grave, but made no reply. His lady walked on, and he followed at a respectful distance.
The former now directed her steps to a locality in the city with which she was but too familiar, and which she had had occasion of late but too often to frequent. This was the Tolbooth–the place of her husband’s confinement.
On reaching the outer entrance to the jail, the low half-door, thickly studded with huge-headed nails, by which it was temporarily secured during the day, was immediately thrown open for her admission by the turnkey–a little crusty-looking personage in a fur cap–who had been leaning over it, listlessly looking around him, on her ladyship’s approach. As the latter entered the prison door, the former stood to one side, doffed his little fur cap, and respectfully wished her ladyship a good morning.
“How are you to-day, James?” said Lady Rae in kindly tones; “and how is my lord?”
“Quite well, my lady, quite well,” replied the little turnkey, extremely proud, seemingly, of the condescension of her ladyship. The latter passed on, and commenced threading her way through the tortuous but well-known passages which led to her husband’s prison-room. John M’Kay followed his mistress into the jail, previously leaving his arms at the door–a condition to which he had always to submit before gaining admission. Having denuded himself of his weapons, John also passed on, but not before he had shaken his fist ominously in the face of the little jailer. This was John’s constant practice every time he entered the prison; and, simple as the act was, it had a good deal of meaning. It meant, in the first place, that John associated the misfortune of his master’s confinement with the little turnkey’s employment; that he considered him as aiding and abetting in the same. It further meant, that if it were not for one thing more than another, or, as John himself would have expressed it, “for todder things more nor ones,” he would have brought his Lochaber axe and the turnkey’s head into more intimate contact.
In the meantime, Lady Rae having ascended several flights of dark and narrow stairs, and traversed several passages of a similar description, had arrived at a particular door, on either side of which stood a grenadier, with shouldered musket and bayonet fixed. They were the guards placed upon her husband, who occupied the apartment which they sentinelled.
The soldiers, who had orders to admit her ladyship and attendant to the prisoner at any time between the hours of nine in the morning and seven at night, offered no hindrance to her approaching the door and rapping for admittance. This she now did; and the “Who’s there?” of the captive was replied to in a powerfully Celtic accent by John M’Kay, with–“My Letty Rae, my lort.” The door instantly flew open, and its inmate came forth, with a smiling and delighted countenance, to receive his beautiful and faithful wife.
In the meantime, John M’Kay took his station on the outside of the door–a more friendly guard over the inmates of the apartment to which it conducted than those who stood on either side of him. Here the same feeling which had dictated John’s significant hint to the turnkey below, suggested his general bearing and particular manner to the two soldiers now beside him.
Maintaining a profound and contemptuous silence, he strutted up and down the passage–without going, however, more than two or three yards either way–in front of the door of his lordship’s apartment, keeping his huge form proudly erect, as he thus paced the short walk to which he had limited himself, and casting, every now and then, a look of fierce defiance on the appalled soldiers, who looked with fear and dread on the chafed lion with whom they found themselves thus unpleasantly caged, and who seemed every moment as if he would spring upon and tear them to pieces; and, in truth, little provocation would it have taken to have brought John M’Kay’s huge fists into play about their heads. There can be no doubt that there was nothing at that moment which would have given John more satisfaction than their affording him an excuse for attacking them. This, however, the soldiers carefully avoided; and, not content with refraining from giving the slightest offence, either in word, look, or deed, endeavoured to conciliate John by an attempt to lead him into friendly conversation. But the attempt was in vain. Their advances were all repelled, either with silent contempt or with a gruff uncourteous response. A specimen of the conversation which did take place between M’Kay and the guards may be given:–
“Delightful day, friend!” said one of the soldiers.
“S’pose it is!” replied John sternly, and continuing his walk.
A pause.
“Anything new in the town to-day?” at length said the other soldier.
“S’pose something new every tay!” replied John gruffly.
“Ay, ay, I dare say; but have _you_ anything new to tell us?”
“Maype I have,” said John, with a grim smile.
“What is it?”
“Tat I’ll knock your tam thick head against tat wall if you’ll pe botter me wi’ any more o’ your tam nonsense. Tat’s news for you!” and John gave one of those peculiar Celtic grunts which no combination of letters can express. “And you, you scarecrow-looking rascal,” he continued, addressing the other sentinel, “if you’ll spoke anoder word, I’ll cram my sporran doon your dam troat.”
Having delivered himself of these friendly addresses, John resumed his march, with additional pride of step and bearing. In a minute after, he was summoned into Lord Rae’s apartment, where he remained until Lady Rae left the prison, which she did in a short time afterwards.
It was with a beating heart and anxious mind that Lady Rae wended her way, on the following day–attended, as usual, by her gigantic serving-man–to the lodgings of Oliver Cromwell. On reaching the house, M’Kay took his station, as on a former occasion, on the outside, while her ladyship advanced towards the door, within which she speedily disappeared, her admittance having been more prompt on the present visit than the former.
In an instant after, Lady Rae was again in the presence of Oliver Cromwell. As on the former occasion, he was employed in writing when she entered, and as on that occasion, so also he threw down his pen, and rose to receive her.
“Anent this matter of yours, my lady,” began Cromwell abruptly, and without any previous salutation, although he looked all civility and kindness, “I really hardly know what to say; truly do I not; but the Lord directs all, and He will guide us in this thing also.”
“I trust so!” interrupted Lady Rae, meekly.
“Yes,” resumed the future Protector of England; “for we are but weak creatures, short-sighted and erring. But indeed, as I told you before, my lady, your husband is a State prisoner; truly is he, and therefore may I not interfere with him. I cannot; I have not the power. Yet would I serve thee if I could; truly would I with great pleasure. But these, you see, are strange times, in which all men must walk warily; for we are beset with enemies, with traitors–deceivers on all sides, men who fear not the Lord. Yet, for this matter of yours, my Lady Rae, I will tell you: I cannot take your husband from prison; it would be unseemly in the sight of all God-fearing men; but truly, if you could in any ways manage to get his lordship once without the prison walls, I would take upon me to prevent his being further troubled. He should have a protection under my hand; truly he should, although it might bring me to some odium with my friends. But he should have it, nevertheless, out of my respect for you, my lady. Now go, go, my lady; I may say no more on the subject. Go, try and fall on some means of getting thy husband without the walls of his prison; this done, come instantly to me, and thou shalt have a protection for him under my hand; indeed thou shalt.”
To Lady Rae, this proposal was a grievous disappointment. It contained an arrangement which she had never contemplated, and which seemed as impracticable as it was strange; yet she saw it was all she had to expect, and that whatever might be the result, she must be content with the extent of interference on her husband’s behalf, which was included in the singular measures suggested by Cromwell.
Impressed with this conviction, Lady Rae thanked him for his kindness, said she would endeavour to get her husband without the prison gates by some means or other, and would then again wait upon him for the protection he was so generous as to offer.
“Do so, my lady, do so,” said Cromwell, escorting her ladyship to the door with an air of great gallantry; “and may the Lord have thee in his holy keeping.”
Lady Rae turned round, again thanked the general, curtseyed, and withdrew.
On reaching the street, her ladyship was instantly joined by her faithful attendant M’Kay, who had been waiting with the greatest anxiety and impatience for her return; for to him his master’s life and liberty were dearer far than his own, and he well knew that both were much in the power of the extraordinary man on whom his lady was now waiting.
On the first glance which he obtained of his mistress’s countenance, John saw, with a feeling of disappointment that lengthened his own several inches, that the interview had not been a satisfactory one. His native sense of politeness, however, and of the deference due to his mistress, prevented him making any inquiries as to what had passed until she should herself choose to communicate with him on the subject. For such communication, however, he had longer to wait than usual; for, lost in thought and depressed with disappointment, Lady Rae walked on a good way without taking any notice whatever of her attendant, who was following at a distance of several yards. At length she suddenly stopped, but without turning round. This John knew to be the signal for him to advance. He accordingly did so, and, touching his bonnet, waited for the communication which it promised.
“I am afraid, John,” now said Lady Rae–“I am afraid we shall be disappointed, after all. The general has made the strangest proposal you ever heard. He says that he cannot, without compromising himself, or to that effect, liberate his lordship from jail; but that if he were once out–that is, if he could be got out by any means–he would save him from being further troubled, and would grant him a protection under his own hand. But how on earth are we to get him out? It is impossible. These two guards at the door, besides other difficulties, render it altogether impracticable. I know not what is to be done.”
It was some seconds before M’Kay made any reply. At length–
“I’ll no think ta difficulty fery crate, after all, my letty,” replied John. “There’s shust ta bodachan at ta dore, I could put in my sporran, and ta twa soger.”
“Yes, John; the first you might perhaps manage,” said Lady Rae, smiling, and glancing unconsciously at the huge figure of her attendant, which presented so striking a contrast to that of the little, slim, crusty turnkey; “but the two soldiers–”
“Whoich,” exclaimed John contemptuously; “if’s no far prettier men than was there yesterday, it’ll no trouble me much to manage them too, my letty. A wee bit clamsheuchar wi’ my Lochaper axe, or a brog wi’ my skean-dhu, will make them quate aneuch, my letty. Tat’s but a small shob.”
“John, John, no violence, no violence!” exclaimed Lady Rae, in great alarm at the sanguinary view of the process for her husband’s liberation which John had taken. “No violence. If his lordship’s liberation be attempted at all, there must be no violence; at least none to the shedding of blood, or to the inflicting the smallest injury on any one. The idea is horrible; and, if acted on, would only make matters worse. Your own life, John, would be the forfeit of such an atrocious proceeding.”
“Foich, a figs for tat, my letty, beggin’ your lettyship’s pardon,” replied John, a good deal disappointed at the peaceful tone of his mistress, and at the loss of an opportunity, such as he had long desired, of taking vengeance on his master’s guards and jailers. “Foich, a figs for tat, my letty, beggin’ your lettyship’s pardon,” he said. “I could teuk to the hills in a moment’s notice, and see who’ll catch John M’Kay then.”
“Well, well, perhaps, John, you might, but you must speak no more of violence; I charge you, speak no more of it. We will, in the meantime, go to his lordship and submit the matter to him, and be guided thereafter by his advice.”
Having said this, Lady Rae directed her steps to the jail, and, closely followed by M’Kay, was soon after in the apartment of the prisoner.
Lord Rae having been apprised by his lady of the result of her interview with Cromwell, a secret consultation between the two, which lasted nearly an hour, ensued.
During this consultation, many different plans for effecting the liberation of the prisoner were suggested, and, after being duly weighed, abandoned as impracticable. One at length, however, was adopted, and this one was proposed by M’Kay; it was characteristic of the man, and came as close in its nature to his original one as he durst presume upon.
This plan, which was a simple enough one, was to seize the two guards at the outside of the door, and to hold them fast until Lord Rae should have rushed past them and got out of the prison. The turnkey at the outer door, who, as has been already said, was a little slender man, his lordship was to seize and throw down, and then get over the little half-door, which was under his guardianship, the best way he could. A row of short, sharp pikes, however, with which it was fenced on its upper edge, rendered this a formidable difficulty; but it was thought that it might, to speak literally, be got over by the aid of a long form which stood on one side of the passage of the jail, for the accommodation of visitors.
All this trouble a touch of the key would have saved; but this the little man always carried in his pocket, never allowing it to remain in the lock an instant, however frequent or numerous his visitors might be.
The securing of the two guards at the prisoner’s door, by far the most serious part of the business, M’Kay took upon himself, and with a degree of confidence that sufficiently showed how well he was aware of his own surpassing strength.
This plan of proceedings arranged, it was resolved that it should be put in execution that very afternoon. On that afternoon, accordingly, John M’Kay again appeared at the jail door, demanding admittance to his master. The door was immediately thrown open to him by the little turnkey, whom he now for the first time addressed in a friendly tone.
The same change of manner marked his salutation to the guards at the door of his master’s apartment. To these he spoke in the most civil and obliging terms possible. The men, who had often winced under his savage growls and fierce looks, wondered at the change, but were glad enough to meet with it in place of his former ferocity.
John, after talking for a few minutes with the sentinels, went into his lordship’s room. The latter was dressed, and ready for the bold proceeding about to be adopted. “Think you you can manage them, John?” said his lordship in a whisper, after the door had been secured in the inside.
“Pooch, a dizzen o’ them, my lort!” replied M’Kay in the same under-tone. “It’s twa bits o’ shachlin’ podies no wors speakin’ aboot.”
“But they are armed, John–they have guns and bayonets; and the former are loaded.”
“Pooch, their guns! what’ll sicknify their guns, my lort, when I’ll have cot a hold o’ the craturs themsels in my hants?” and he held out his enormous brown paws as if to certify their power. “I’ll crush the podies like a mussel shells.”
“No violence, John, remember,” said Lord Rae energetically, but smiling as he spoke,–“that is, to the extent of doing the men any, the smallest personal injury. Remember now, John; do otherwise,” continued his lordship in a more severe tone, “and you forfeit my favour and esteem for ever. Mark, John, besides,” added his lordship, who seemed most anxious on the point which he was now pressing on M’Kay’s consideration, “your doing any injury to these men would be destruction to me; for, under such circumstances, the general would not grant me a protection after I was out, and my case would otherwise be rendered infinitely worse and more hopeless than it is. Now, remember all this, John, and do the men no personal injury, I charge you.”
John’s face reddened a little at the earnestness with which these injunctions were delivered, and probably he thought they indicated something like degeneracy in his chief; but he promised compliance with his commands; and, to render his obedience more certain, by lessening the temptation to infringe them, he denuded himself of a concealed dirk, which he always carried about him, over and above the arms he openly wore. Of this proceeding, which was voluntary on M’Kay’s part, his master highly approved, but, smiling, said–
“You have still your fists, John, nearly as dangerous weapons as that you have just laid aside; but I hope you will use them sparingly.”
John smiled, and promised he would.
In a few minutes afterwards M’Kay came forth from Lord Rae’s apartment to perform the daring feat of securing two armed men by the mere force of physical strength; for he was now without weapon of any kind. When he came out, however, it was with an appearance of the most friendly feeling towards the soldiers. He came out smiling graciously, and entered into familiar chat with the men, alleging that he came to put off the time till his master had written a letter which he was to deliver to a person in town.
Thrown off their guard by M’Kay’s jocular and cordial manner, the soldiers grounded their muskets, and began to enter in earnest into the conversation which he was promoting. M’Kay, in the meantime, was watching his opportunity to seize them; but this, as it was necessary he should be placed, with regard to them, so as to have one on either side of him, that he might grasp both at the same instant, he did not obtain for some time.
By dint, however, of some exceedingly cautious and wary manoeuvring, M’Kay at length found himself in a position favourable to his meditated proceedings. On doing so, he, with the speed and force of lightning, darted an arm out on either side of him, seized a soldier by the breast with each hand, and with as much ease as a powerful dog could turn over a kitten, laid them both gently on their backs on the floor of the passage, where he held them extended at full length, and immovable in his tremendous grasp, till he felt assured that Lord Rae had cleared the prison. This the latter effected with the most perfect success. The moment M’Kay seized the soldiers–an act of which Lord Rae was apprised by the former’s calling out, “Noo, noo, my lort”–he rushed out, ran along the passage, descended the stair in three or four leaps, came upon the little turnkey unawares, as he was looking over the half-door of the prison entrance–his sole occupation during three-fourths of the day–seized him by the neck of the coat behind, laid him down, as M’Kay had done by the soldiers, at his full length–no great length after all–on the floor; drew the form to the door, placed it over the little turnkey in such a way as to prevent his rising, jumped on it, leapt into the street at one bound, and instantly disappeared. All this was done in the tenth part of the time that has been taken to relate it. It was, in truth, the work of but a moment.
On being satisfied that Lord Rae had made his escape–
“Noo, lads, ye may got up,” said M’Kay, loosening his hold of the men, and starting himself to his feet. “Ta burd’s flown; but ye may look after ta cage, and see tat no more o’ your canaries got away.”
Freed from the powerful grasp which had hitherto pinned them to the floor, the soldiers sprang to their feet, and endeavoured to get hold of their muskets. Seeing this, M’Kay again seized them, and again threw them to the floor; but on this occasion it was merely to show the power he had over them, if they should still have any doubt of it.
“Noo, lads, I’ll tell you what it is,” said M’Kay, addressing the prostrate soldiers–“if you’ll behave yoursels desenly, and no be botherin’ me wi’ ony more o’ your tarn nonsense, I’ll aloo you to make me your prisoner; for I’m no intending to run away; I’ll kive myself up to save your hides, and take my shance of ta law for what I’ll do. Tat’s my mind of it, lads. If you like to acree to it, goot and well; if not, I will knock your two heads togidder, till your prains go into smash.”
But too happy to accept of such terms, the soldiers at once assented to them; and on their doing so, were permitted once more to resume their legs, when M’Kay peaceably yielded himself their prisoner. The gigantic Highlander could easily have effected his own escape; but he could not have done so without having recourse to that violence which had been so anxiously deprecated by both his master and mistress. Without inflicting some mortal injury on the soldiers, he could not have prevented them from pursuing him when he had fled, and probably firing on him as he did so. All this, therefore, had been provided for by the arrangements previously agreed upon by Lord Rae and his retainer. By these it was settled, that he should, on the former’s making his escape, peaceably yield himself up to “underlie the law,” in a reliance on the friendly disposition of Cromwell towards the fugitive, which, it was not doubted, would be exerted in behalf of his servant. Such proceeding, it was thought too, would bring Lord Rae’s case sooner to issue; and be, with regard to the law, as it were, throwing a bone in the dog’s way to arrest his attention, and interrupt his pursuit of the original and more important object of his vengeance.
On delivering himself up, M’Kay was immediately placed in confinement, and shortly after brought to trial, for aiding and abetting in the escape of a State prisoner. The trial was a very brief one; for the facts were easily established, and sentence was about to be passed on the prisoner, when a stir suddenly arose at the court door. The presiding judge paused; the stir increased. In the next instant it was hushed; and in that instant Cromwell entered the court. On advancing a pace or two within the apartment, he took off his hat, bowed respectfully to the judges, and proceeding onwards, finally ascended the bench and took his seat beside them.
When a man feels himself master, he need be under no great ceremony; neither need he trouble himself much about forms or rules which regulate the conduct of inferiors. Cromwell, on this occasion, got up in a few minutes after he had taken his place, and delivered to the court a long, and, after his usual fashion, obscure and unconnected oration in favour of the prisoner at the bar. The chief ground, however, on which he rested his defence and exculpation of M’Kay, was the fidelity to his master, which the crime with which he was charge implied, and the worse effect to the cause of morality than good to the political interests of the State, which the infliction of any punishment in such case would produce. “If,” concluded Cromwell, “fidelity to a master is to be punished as a crime, where shall we look for honest servants?”
The reasoning of Cromwell, even had it been less cogent than it was, could not be but convincin to those who knew of and dreaded his power. He was listened to with the most profound attention, and the justness of his arguments and force of his eloquence acknowledged by the acquittal of the prisoner.
As M’Kay rose from his seat at the bar to leave the court, Cromwell eyed him attentively for some seconds, and, struck with his prodigious size and fierce aspect, whispered to one of the judges near him, “May the Lord keep me from the devil’s and _that_ man’s grasp.”
We have now only to add, that the protection promised by Cromwell to Lady Rae for her husband was duly made out, and delivered to her. We need not say that it was found to be a perfectly efficient document.
THE DIAMOND EYES.
When I entered Edinburgh College the students were tolerably free from any of those clubs or parties into which some factitious subject–often a whim–divides them. In the prior year the spirit of wager had seized a great number of them with the harpy talons of the demon of gambling, giving rise to consequences prejudicial to their morals, as well as to their studies. A great deal of money among the richer of them changed hands upon the result of bets, often the most frivolous, if not altogether ridiculous. Now, we are not to say that, abstracted from the love of money, the act of betting is unqualifiedly bad, if rather we may not be able to say something for it, insomuch as it sometimes brings out, and stamps ingenuity or sagacity, while it represses and chastises arrogance. But the practice at the College at that time was actually wild. They sought out subjects; the aye and the no of ordinary converse was followed by the gauntlet, which was taken up on the instant; and they even had an umpire in the club, a respectable young man of the name of Hawley, who was too wise to bet himself, but who was pleased with the honour of being privileged to decide the bets of the others.
In the heat of this wild enthusiasm, it happened that two of these youths, one called Henry Dewhurst, and the other Frank Hamilton, were walking on the jetty which runs out from the harbour of Leith a full mile into the Forth. Dewhurst was the son of a West India planter, who allowed him L300 a year, every penny of which was spent in paying only a part of his bills long before the year was done; one of which bills I had an opportunity of seeing, to my wonder–how any one could eat L15 worth of tarts and sweetmeats in the course of not many months! Hamilton was the son of a west country proprietor, and enjoyed the privilege of using, to his ruin, a yearly allowance of L250. In the midst of their sauntering they hailed two of their friends,–one Campbell, a sworn companion of the young West Indian; and the other Cameron, as closely allied to Hamilton;–all the four being, as the saying goes, “birds of a feather,” tossing their wings in the gale of sprees, and not always sleeping in their own nests at night.
As they approached the end of the jetty, they met a lad who had wounded one of these large gulls called Tom Norries,–a beautiful creature, with its fine lead-coloured wings and charming snow-white breast, and eye like a diamond.
“I will give you a shilling for the bird,” said Dewhurst.
“But what are you to do with it?” replied the lad. “I would not like it to be killed. It is only hurt in the wing; and I will get half-a-crown for it from one who has a garden to keep it in.”
“No, no,” said Dewhurst, “I’ll not kill it. Here’s your half-crown.”
And the bargain was struck. Dewhurst, with the struggling bird in his hand, went down, followed by his friends, one of the side stairs to the stone rampart, by which the jetty is defended on the east. There they sat down. The sun was throwing a blaze of glory over a sea which repaid the gift with a liquid splendour scarcely inferior to his of fire; and the companions of the bird, swirling in the clear air, seemed to be attracted by the sharp cries of the prisoner; but all its efforts were vain to gratify its love of liberty and their yearning. It was in the hands of those who had neither pity for its sufferings, consideration for the lessons it carried in its structure, nor taste for estimating its beauties. One of another kind of students might have detected adaptations in the structure of that creature sufficient to have raised his thoughts to the great Author of design and the source of all beauty,–that small and light body, capable of being suspended for a great length of time in the air by those broad wings, so that, as a bird of prey, it should watch for its food without the aid of a perch; the feathers, supplied by an unctuous substance, to enable them to throw off the water and keep the body dry; the web-feet for swimming; and the long legs, which it uses as a kind of stay, by turning them towards the head when it bends the neck, to apply the beak–that beak, too, so admirably formed–for taking up entire, or perforating the backs of the silly fishes that gambol too near the surface. Ay, even in these fishes, which, venturing too far from their natural depths, and becoming amorous of the sun, and playful in their escapades, he might see the symbol of man himself, who, when he leaves the paths of prudence, and gets top-light with pleasure, is ready, in every culmination of his delirium, to be caught by a waiting retribution. Ah! but our student, who held the bird, was not incurious–only cold and cruel in his curiosity.
“Hamilton,” said he, “that bird could still swim on the surface of that sea, though deprived of every feather on its body.”
“I deny it,” replied Hamilton. “It will not swim five minutes,”
“What do you bet?”— The old watchword.
“Five pounds.”
“Done.”
And getting Campbell to hold the beak, which the bird was using with all its vigour, he grasped its legs and wings together by his left hand, and began to tear from the tender living skin the feathers. Every handful showed the quivering flesh, and was followed by spouts of blood; nor did he seem to care–although the more carefully the flaying operation was performed, the better chance he had of carrying his wager–whether he brought away with the torn tips portions of the skin. The writhing of the tortured creature was rather an appeal to his deliberate cruelty, and the shrill scream only quickened the process. The back finished and bloody, the belly, snow-white and beautiful, was turned up, the feathers torn away, the breast laid bare, and one wing after the other stript of every pinion. Nothing in the shape of feathers, in short, was left, except the covering of the head, which resisted his fingers.
“There now is Plato’s definition of a man personified,” said he as he laughed.
During all this time a lady looked over the parapet. Dewhurst caught her eye red with anger, but he only laughed the louder.
“Now, Hamilton,” said he, “you take the bird, and we mount to the platform. When I give the sign, fling him in, and we shall see how the bet goes.”
They accordingly mounted, and the lady turning her back, as if she had been unable to bear longer the sight of so much cold cruelty, directed her vision towards the west; but a little boy, who was along with her, seemed to watch the operation.
“Now,” cried Dewhurst.
And Hamilton thiew the bird into the sea. The creature, still vivacious, true to its old instinct, spread out its bare wings in an attempt to fly, but it was in vain; down it came sinking below the surface, but rising quickly again to lash, with the bleeding wings, the water on which it used to swim so lightly and elegantly. The struggle between the effort to fly and the tendency to sink was continued for several minutes, its screams bringing closer around it many of its compeers, who looked as if with pity and amazement on the suffering victim, known to them now only by the well-known cry of distress.
Meanwhile these curious students of natural history stood looking over the rail, watch in hand; and the little boy, an important personage in our story, also intent upon the experiment, cried out two solitary words, very simple ones too, and yet fraught with a strange import, as regards consequences, that could not be gathered from them.
“See, ma’.”
But the lady to whom they were addressed had still her head turned away.
“Six minutes,” cried Dewhurst. “The time is up, and the bird is only this instant down. I win.”
“I admit it,” responded Hamilton, evidently disconcerted. “I shall pay you to-night at Stewart’s, at seven o’clock. I got my remittance yesterday.”
“Content,” said Dewhurst, “That’s the third bet I have gained off you within a fortnight,”
Hamilton bit his lip and scowled— an act which only roused against him the raillery of his comrades, who were now collected in a circle, and symptoms of anger of a more expressive kind showed themselves.
“You have been at this trade of flaying before,” said he, looking sternly at Dewhurst. “Your father, like the other West Indians, is well acquainted with the flaying of negroes, and you have been following his example with the Jamaica lungies. But, by G–d,” he added, getting enraged, “next time we cross the rapiers of a bet, it shall be for ten times five.”
“This instant,” answered Dewhurst, on whom the imputations about his father acted as a fiery stimulant.
“Seek your subject,” responded Hamilton.
“You see that lady there?” continued the West Indian. “She has a boy with her.”
“I do.”
“The mother of the boy, or not?” continued Dewhurst. “I say she is; and, in place of fifty, I’ll make it a hundred.”
“Have you ever seen them before?” asked Hamilton, trying to be calm.
“Never. I know no more of them than you do; and, besides, I give you your choice of mother, or not mother.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Campbell, as he looked intently at Dewhurst. “Are you mad, Dewhurst? Has your last triumph blinded you? The woman is too old by ten years.”
Hamilton turned round without saying a word, and drew cautiously near the lady, whose eyes, as she stood looking at a foreign ship coming in, were still scornful, and it seemed as if she waited until some gentleman came up to inform him of the cruel act she had so recently witnessed. Resisting her fiery glances, he surveyed her calmly, looking by turns at her and the boy. A slight smile played on his lip in the midst of the indications of his wrath. One might have read in that expression–
“Not a feature in these two faces in the least similar, and the age is beyond all mortal doubt. I have the gull-flayer on the hip at last.”
And returning to the companions with the same simulated coolness–
“Done for a hundred,” he said. “That lady is not the mother of that boy.”
“Agreed,” answered Dewhurst, with a look of inward triumph. “How to be decided?”
“By the lips of the lady herself.”
“Agreed.”
“Yes,” joined Campbell, “if you can get these lips to move. She looks angry, and now she is moving along probably for home, bequeathing to us the last look of her scorn. We shall give her time to cool down, and Cameron and I will then pay our respects to her. We shall get it out of the boy if she refuse to answer.”
It was as Campbell said. The lady with the boy, who held her by the hand, had begun her return along the jetty. The companions kept walking behind; and of these, Campbell and Dewhurst fell back a little from the other two.
“Hark, Campbell,” said Dewhurst. “Back me against Cameron for any sum you can get out of him. I’m sure of my quarry; and,” laughing within the teeth, he added, “I’ll gull him again.”
“You’re ruined, man,” whispered his companion. “The woman is evidently too old, and I am satisfied you will catch some of her wrinkles.”
A deeper whisper from Dewhurst conveyed to the ear of his friend–
“I heard the boy call her mother.”
“The devil!” exclaimed Campbell in surprise; but, catching himself, “it might have been grandmother he meant.”
“No, no. Children in Scotland use grandma’, never ma’, to grandmother. I’m satisfied; and if you are not a fool, take advantage of my “–
“Dishonesty,” added Campbell.
“No; all fair with that fellow Hamilton. Besides, all bets assume a retention of reasons, otherwise there could be no bets. In addition, I did not assert that I did not hear them address each other.”
“That’s something,” said Campbell. “I do not say it is impossible, or even very improbable, that she may be the mother; and if you will assure me, on your honour, of what you heard, I will have a little speculative peculation on Cameron.”
“I can swear; and if I couldn’t, do you think I would have bet so high, as in the event of losing I should be ruined?”
“I’m content,” said Campbell. “Ho, there, Cameron! I will back Dewhurst on the maternity for ten.”
“That will just pay Nightingale,” replied Cameron. “I accept. Now for the grand _denouement_. Let us accost the arbitress of our fortunes.”
“Not yet,” said Hamilton. “Wait till she gets to the lighthouse, where there are people. It is clear she has not a good opinion of us, and in this solitary place she might get alarmed.”
Hanging back to wait their opportunity, now upon the verge of a decision which might be attended with disastrous results to some of them, the whole four appeared absorbed in anxiety. Not a word was spoken; and it seemed possible that, during these trying minutes, a hint would have broken up the imprudent and dangerous compact. The terror of the club was before them, and the false honour which ruled them, in place of obedience to their fathers, and humanity to dumb creatures, retained the ascendency. So has it ever been with the worship of false gods: their exactions have always been in proportion to the folly and credulity of their votaries. The moment was approaching. The die was to carry formidable issues. Dark shadows broke in through the resolution to be brave, as might have been observed in the features of both the principals. At length Campbell took the lead. They approached the lady, who at first seemed to shrink from them as monsters.
“We beg pardon,” he said. “Be assured, madam, we have not the most distant intention to offend you. The truth is, that we have a bet among us as to whether you are the mother of this fine boy. We assure you, moreover, that it was the sport of betting that sought out the subject, and the nature of that subject cannot, we presume, be prejudicial either to your honour or your feelings. While I ask your pardon, allow me to add that the wager, foolish or not, is to be decided by your answer–yes or no.”
“No.”
After pronouncing, with a severe sternness, this monosyllable, she paused a little; and looking round upon the youths with a seriousness and dignity that sat upon her so well that they shrunk from her glance, she added, with a corresponding solemnity–
“Would to God, who sees all things–ay, and punishes all those who are cruel to the creatures He has formed with feelings suitable to their natures, and dear to them as ours are to us–that he who bet upon my being the mother of this boy may be he who tortured the unoffending bird!”
And, with these words, she departed, leaving the bewildered students looking at each other, with various emotions. It was, perhaps, fortunate for Dewhurst that the little sermon, contrary to the practice of the courts, came after, in place of preceding the condemnation, for he had been rendered all but insensible by the formidable monosyllable. He saw there was some mystery overhanging his present position. He doubted, and he did not doubt the lady; but he heard the boy use the word, and he took up the impression that he was, by some mistake on his part, to be punished for the flaying of the bird. The lady’s eye, red and angry, had been fixed upon him, and now, when she was gone, he still saw it. But there were more lurid lights, playing round certain stern facts connected with his fortunes. He must pay this L100 on the decision of her who had burned him with her scorn. There was no relief for him. The club at the College had no mercy, and he had enraged Hamilton, whose spirit was relentless. He had been under rebuke from his father, who had threatened to cut him off; and, worse still, the remnant of the last yearly remittance was L110 in the Royal Bank, while debts stood against him in the books of tailors, confectioners, tavern-keepers, shoemakers–some already in the form of decrees, and one at least in the advanced stage of a warrant. To sum up all, he was betrothed to Miss M——- sh, the sister of a writer to the signet, who had already hinted doubts as the propriety of the marriage. He saw himself, in short, wrecked on the razor-backed shelving rocks of misery. In his extremity, he clutched at a floating weed: the woman, the lady, did not speak the truth. He had ears, and could hear, and he would trust to them. The boy could not be wrong.
“Campbell,” he cried, “dog her home–she lies!” Hamilton and Campbell burst out into a laugh, but Campbell had been taken aback by the lady’s answer: he had not L10 to pay Cameron, and the fear of the club was before him, with its stern decree of the brand of caste and rejection by his associates. Since the moment of the lady’s answer, he had been conscious of obscure doubts as to her truthfulness, clustering round the suspicion that she might have known, by hearing something, that Dewhurst, the gull-flayer, was on the side of the maternity, and that she wanted to punish him–a notion which seemed to be favoured by the somewhat affected manner of her expressing her little sermon. These doubts, fluid and wavering, became, as it were, crystallized by Dewhurst’s cry that she was a liar; and, the moment he felt the sharp angles of the idea, he set off after the lady.
This hope, which was nothing more than despair in hysterics, enabled Dewhurst to withstand, for a little, the looks of triumph in Hamilton and Cameron, in spite of their laugh, which still rung in his ears. The sermon had touched him but little, and if he could have got quit of this wildly contracted debt, he would likely be the same man again. He did not, as yet, feel even the dishonour of having taken advantage of the boy’s statement–an act which he had subtlety enough to defend. Give him only relief from this debt, the fire of the club, the stabbing glances of Hamilton’s eye. At least he was not bound to suffer the personal expression of his companions’ triumph any longer than he could away.
“We will wait the issue of Campbell’s inquiry,” he said with affected calmness. “I have a call to make in the Links.”
And he was retreating, even as he uttered these words.
“I owe you L5,” cried Hamilton, “which, _as a man of honour_, I pay you to-night at seven o’clock, upon the instant, at Stewart’s. I have no wish to be dragged before the club.”
With this barb, touched with wararra poison, or ten times distilled kakodyle, and a layer of honey over all, Dewhurst hurried away, to make no call. He was hard to subdue, and a puppy, whose passion it was to strut, in the perfection of a refined toilette, among fashionable street-walkers. While he was abroad, his cares rankling within were overborne by the consciousness of being “in position.” The dog’s nose is cold even when his tongue is reeking; and as he walked slowly along, his exterior showed the proper thermo-metric nonchalance–it was not the time for a pyrometric measurement within the heart. On his way, he talked to a Leith merchant, who hailed him; yet he exhibited the required _retenu_, so expressive of confidence and ease within, and withal so fashionable. You might have said that he had the heart to wing a partridge,–to “wing it,” a pretty phrase in the mouth of a polite sportsman, who, if a poacher were to break the bones of his leg, would, in his own case, think it a little different. Yes, Dewhurst might have been supposed to be able to “wing a partridge,”–not to “flay a gull.”
It was while thus “in position”–not its master, but its slave–that curvation of the spine of society, which produces so much paralysis and death–that, when he came to Princes Street, he felt himself constrained and able to walk up South St. Andrew Street, direct to the door of the Royal Bank. He even entered; he even drew a draft; he even made that draft L110, all the money he had there in keeping for so many coming wants and exigencies; he even presented it to the teller, who knew his circumstances and his dangers–ay, and his father’s anxieties while he sent the yearly remittance.
“All, Mr. Dewhurst?” said the teller, looking blank at the draft.
“All, sir; I require it all,” answered the student, with such a mouthful of the vowel, that we might write the word _requoire_, and not be far from the pronunciation.
The teller gave his head a significant shake. If he had had a tail to shake, and had shaken that tail, it would have been much the same.
Having got the money, he was more than ever under the law of that proclivity, on the broad line to ruin, on which so many young men take stations; and still retaining his, he went at the hour of the hot joints, to dine at the Rainbow, where he met many others, in that refreshment house, of the same class, who, like himself, considered–that is, while the money was there–that guineas in the purse supersede the necessity of having ideas in the head. He took to such liquid accompaniments of the dinner, as would confirm the resolution he had formed, of paying at once his debt of honour. And why not? Was not he of that world whose code of laws draws the legitimate line of distinction between debts contracted to industrious tradesmen for the necessaries of life, and those which are the result of whim, pride, or vindictiveness? All recollections of the flaying of the bird, and of the lady’s adjuration to heaven, had given way to the enthusiasm of the noble feeling to obey the dictates of that eternal and immutable code of honour. And by seven o’clock he was at Stewart’s, where he found Hamilton and Cameron waiting for their respective “pounds of flesh.”
“Here is the L5,” cried Hamilton, as he entered; and, throwing the note upon the table, “it is for the gull trick.”
“And here,” responded the West Indian, “is your L100 for the woman trick.”
And he cast from him the bundle of notes, with a grandeur of both honour and defiance. “But I have a reservation to make. Campbell has not reported to me the issue of his commission; and if it shall turn out that the woman retracts, I will reclaim the money.”
“And get it too,” said the other, laughing sneeringly, as he counted the notes. “But here comes Campbell.”
“Campbell,” cried Cameron, as his debtor entered, “I want my L10 to pay Nightingale.”
“Ask Dewhurst,” said Campbell. “I have been cheated by him. He told me a lie. The woman speaks true, and I shall be revenged.”
“I have nothing to do with Dewhurst,” answered Cameron. “You are my debtor; and if I don’t get the money to-night–you know my lodgings–the club will decide upon it to-morrow.”
And, throwing a withering look upon his old friend–a word now changed for, and lost in that expressive vocable, debtor–he hurried out, followed by Hamilton, who had both his money and his revenge, and wished to be beyond the reach of a recall.
Left to themselves, the two remaining friends of the hour before, but now no longer friends, looked sternly at each other. The one considered himself duped; the other was burning under the imputation of being a cheat and a liar.
“Oh I don’t retract,” said Campbell, with increased fierceness. “It was upon the faith of your word that I ventured the bet against my own convictions. I have traced the lady to Great King Street, where she resides, as the aunt of the boy; and I am satisfied that, in a case where the boy’s mother is alive, and now in her own house, he, of the age he is, never could have used the word mother or mamma, or any word of that import, to his father’s sister. All power and energies are comparative. This L10 cracks the spine of my fortune as effectually as ten times the amount. I have not the money, and know no more where to find it than I do to get hold of the philosopher’s stone. I repeat I have been cheated, and I demand of you the money.”
“Which you shall never get,” replied Dewhurst. “I can swear that I heard the words. They thrill on my ears now; and the best proof of my conviction is, that I am myself ruined. Yes,” and he began to roll his eyes about, as the terrors of his situation came rushing upon him, on the wake of the now departing effects of the Rainbow wine–“Yes, the swell, the fop, the leader of the college _ton_, whose coat came from the artistic study of Willis, whose necktie could raise a _furore_, whose glove, without a wrinkle, would condescend only to be touched by friendship on the tip of the finger, is now at the mercy of any one of twenty sleasy dogs, who can tell the sheriff I owe them money. Money! why, I have only fifteen pounds in the wide world, and I must pay that to my landlady.”
As he uttered these last words, the door opened, and there stood before him a man with a blue coat, surmounted by a red collar. He held a paper in his hand; his demeanour was deferential and exuberantly polite.
“That sum you have mentioned, sir,” he said, looking to the student, “with L10 added, will save you and me much trouble. The debt to Mr. Reid is L25; and here is a certain paper which gives me the power to do an unpolite thing. You comprehend? I am an advocate for painless operations.”
“Will you accept the L15?” said Dewhurst, now scarcely able to articulate.
“Yes, if this gentleman here, who is, I presume, your friend, will kindly add the L10. The expenses may stand.”
Campbell could only grin at this strange conversation.
“Unwilling?” continued the messenger. “Ah, I see. It is strange that when I devote myself to a gentleman, his friends fly away. This is my misfortune. Well, there is no help for it. We must take a walk to the prison,” addressing himself to his debtor. “You are a gentleman, and I shall be your servant in livery.”
Dewhurst braced himself with a violent effort, like a spasm, and took his hat.
“Give me the L10,” said Campbell. “It will make no difference now. There are no degrees in despair.”
“I must take care of my master’s money,” said the officer, with an attempt at a smile; and without going the full length of imitating that most philanthropic of all executors of the law, Simpson, who patted his victims on the back while he adjusted the rope, he added, “And now, sir, I am at your humble service.”
In a very short time after, the strange events of that day were terminated by the young man being placed in the debtor’s prison of the Calton. Like other jail birds, he at first shunned his brethren in misfortune, fleeing to his room, and shrouding himself in solitude and partial darkness. The change from a life of gaiety, if not dissipation, to the experiences of prison squalor, had come upon him without preparation, if indeed preparation for evil ever diminishes or much ameliorates the inevitable effects of the visitation. Unfortunates exhibit wonderful diversities in their manifestations. Dewhurst became dejected, broken in spirits, sad, and remorseful. He scarcely stirred from the bed on which he had thrown himself when he entered; and his mind became a theatre where strange plays were acted, and strange personages performed strange parts, under the direction of stage managers over whom he had no control. Though some unhappy predecessor in the same cell had scribbled on the wall,
“A prison is a cannie place,
Though viewed with reprobation,
Where cheats and thieves, and scants o’ grace, Find time for cogitation,”
he did not find that he could properly cogitate or meditate, even if he had been, which he never was, a thinker. All his thoughts were reduced to a continued wild succession of burning images,–the mild face of his mother, so far away, as it smiled upon him when he ran about among the cane groves of the west; the negroes, with their “young massa” on their tongues, jabbering their affection; his father scowling upon him as undutiful; another, not so far away, in whose eyes–beautiful to him–love dwelt as his worshipper, looking all endearment, only the next moment to cast upon him the withering glance of her contempt, if not hatred; admirers, toadies, satellites, and sycophants, all there in groups and in succession, beslabbering him with praises, then exploding in peals of laughter. Nor was another awanting in these saturnalia–the form and face of her whose one word of sentence had been to him as a doom, and who fixed that doom in his soul by her red glance of reproof. Seemingly very indifferent objects assumed in the new lights of his spirit gigantic and affraying features,–the sea-gull, with its torn back, bleeding and quivering, and those diamond eyes so bright even in its looks of agony–an object low indeed in the scale of nature, but here elevated by some overruling power into the very heart of man’s actions and destinies, as if to show out of what humble things the lightnings of retribution may come. Nay, these diamond eyes haunted him; they were everywhere in these saturnalian reveries, following every recurring image as an inevitable concomitant which he had no power to drive away, entering into the orbits of the personages, gleaming out of the heads of negroes, that of his father, that of his mother, even that of his mistress, imparting to the looks and glances of the latter a brilliancy which enhanced beauty, while it sharpened them into poignancy. But most of all were they in some way associated with the form of the unknown lady. She never appeared to him as the being on whom his destiny was suspended; but, sooner or later, her own comparatively lustreless orbs changed into those diamonds, which could fulminate scorn not less than they could beam out supplication.
For several days and nights he had scarcely any intervals of peace from these soul-penetrating fancies, and these moments were due to visits. But who came to visit? Not the writer to the signet, the brother of his affianced, whom he had expected to see first of all as a friend, if not as a relation, ready to extend the hand that would save him; not any of those with whom he had shared the folly of extravagance, if not dissipation, on whom he had lavished favours in the wildness of his generosity. The first was felicitating himself on his sister’s escape; the latter received the lesson that teaches prudence _a la distance_. His only visitors were one or two heads of families where he had been received as a fashionable friend, and these came only to look and inquire. Their curiosity was satisfied when they got out of him the amount of his debt, and pleased when they considered that their daughters were at home, and under no chance of becoming allied to a prisoner. One or two old associates, too, paid their respects to him, but they were of those who had resisted his fascinations and found their pleasures in their studies. We seek for the virtues, but we do not always find them in the high places, where masks, copied from them and bearing their beautiful lineaments and their effulgence, are worn in their stead only to cover the vices which are their very antipodes. No: more often in lowlier regions, lying _perdu_ behind vices, not voluntary, but often, as it were, inflicted and peering out, ashamed to be seen, because arrayed in the rags of poverty. A solitary female stole in to him. Who was she? One with whom he had formed a connection of not an honourable kind, only now interrupted by the walls of the prison? No. One whom he had long before cast off, only because the vice he had inoculated her with had cast off the beauty that had inflamed him. Nor did he know the meaning of that stealthy visit, which lasted only for a few minutes–so unexpected, for he had not seen her during many months, so singular, so unnatural, so unlike the world, returning gratitude for injury, benediction for infamy, until, after she had suddenly slipped away, he found by the side of the wall a small bottle of wine. That form and face, once more beautiful in his estimation than were those even now of his honourable affianced, entered among the imagery of his reveries; but the diamond eyes never displaced those of her gentle nature. He had wronged her, but they never filled with the fire of denunciation. She had looked her grief at him only through the tears he had raised in them, and had never attempted to dry. Yes, the diamond eyes entered everywhere, and into every form but that one where the red heat of revenge might have been expected to shrivel up and harden the issues of tears.
Further on in the same evening, the jailer, a good-natured sort of fellow, came in to him while he was absorbed in these thoughts. He was at the time sitting on his bed.
“A lady called in the dusk,” he said, “and inquired if it was true you were here. I told her it was.”
“And what more?” asked the youth, as he started out of his day-dream. “But, stay–what like was she?”
“I could scarcely see her,” replied the man; “middling tail, rather young, as I thought–with a veil, through which I could see a pair of pretty, bright eyes.”
“Were they like diamonds?” cried the student, absolutely forgetting that he was speaking to an ordinary mortal about very ordinary things.
“Ha, ha! I never saw diamond eyes,” answered the jailer; “but I’ve seen glass ones in a doll’s head looking very bright. Why, you ‘aven’t got mad, like some of the chicken-hearted birds in our cage?”
“Yes,” cried the youth, “I’m frantic-mad; but stay, have patience. Did she want to see me?”
“Yes, she asked if she could; but when I told her she might, she seemed to get afeared to come into a jail, and said she would call again to-morrow night at the same hour.”
“Can you tell me nothing more of what she was like?–not she who was here this evening?”
“Why, no; don’t you think I know her kind? Oh, we see many o’ them. They stick closest to the unfortunate, but ’tis because they are unfortunate themselves. Common thing, sir. Never feel for others till we have something to feel for ourselves. The visitor is a lady, sir.”
“Can you tell me nothing more?” said the student eagerly. “How was she dressed?”
“A large, elegant cloak, sir; can scarcely say more.”
“Was it trimmed with fur?”
“Not sure; but now, when I think, there was some lightish trimming–I mean lighter than the cloak.”
“And the bonnet?”
“Why, I think velvet; but you’ll maybe see her yourself to-morrow. The like o’ her may do you good. The unfortunates who stick so close to the unfortunate do no good–they’re a plaster that don’t cure.”
“It is Maria!” ejaculated Dewhurst, as the jailer shut the door. “She feels for me, and has come in spite of her hard-hearted brother. Her diamond eyes are of another kind. They speak wealth, and love to bestow it. Her fortune is her own, and with that I may yet turn that wayward destiny, and laugh at my persecutors.”
That ray of hope, illuminating his soul, changed almost in an instant the whole tenor of his mind. It might be compared to a stream of nervous energy, emanating from the brain, and shooting down through the network of chords, confirming convulsed muscles, and; imparting to trembling members consistency of action and graces of motion. His reveries were scared by it, as owls under the influence of a sunbeam, and retreated into the dark recesses from which they had been charmed by the enchantment of despair. The personages of these visions were no longer avengers, casting upon him the burning beams of the diamond eyes. They were hopeful, pitiful; the flatterers and fawners were at their old work again, and Pleasure, with her siren face, smiled blandishments on him. Then he would justify the favours of the heaven he made for himself. He would be a logician, for once, in that kind of dialectics called the “wish-born.”
“What was I afraid of?” he said to himself. “There is no turpitude, no shame in a fair bet. I was worsted in an honourable contest. What crazy power mocked me into the belief that all this that has befallen me was connected with the flaying of a bird? Don’t we break the necks of innocent, yea, gentle fowls, not depredators like gulls, every day for our dinners? And don’t ladies, as delicate as the unknown censor who dared to chastise me with her eyes, eat of the same, with a relish delightful to the tongues that pronounce the fine words of pity and philanthropy? But, even admitting there was cruelty in the act, where is the link that binds it with the consequences which have brought me here? The bet upon the maternity was not an effect of the flaying of the bird. If it followed the prior bet, it would have followed another, in which I was gainer, equally the same. The mad energy which weaves in my head these day-dreams, and pursues me with these diamond eyes of wrath, is a lying power, and I shall master it by the strength of my reason, which at least is God’s gift. Come, my Maria, as my good angel, and enable me to free my mind from illusions. I will sit and look into your eyes, as I have done so often. Yes, I will satisfy myself that they shine still with the lustre of love, hope, and happiness; and oh, let these, and these only, enter into my dreams.”
And thus he satisfied himself, as all do, whose hope weaves the syllogisms of their wishes, and sits to see pleasure caught on the wing. The day passed apace to usher in the evening with its messenger of peace. Where, in that squalid place, would he seat her, whose peculiar province was the drawing-room? How would he receive her first look of sympathy? how repay it? with what words express his emotions? with what fervour kiss those lips redolent of forgiveness? with what ecstasy look into those eyes refulgent with love? He would control himself, and be calm. He would rehearse, that he might not fail in the forms of an interview on which hung his destiny, almost his life. The hour of seven arrived. He heard the heavy foot of the jailer come tramp, tramp along the lobby. There was a softer step behind, as if the echo of the heavier tread. A stern voice and a softer one mingled their notes. The door opened.
“My Mar–! O God! these scornful eyes again.”
“Not scornful now,” replied the soft voice of a woman, as she came forward, and stood before him in the dusk.
“Were there light enough,” she continued, “I would lift my veil and show you that they are capable of a kindlier light than even that they now carry, for the offering I made to heaven has been more than answered.”
“Ah, you come to retract,” he said, “to speak the truth at last. It is not too late to say you _are_ the mother–the mother of the boy. Nor need you be ashamed: there may be reasons; but many a woman lives to repent–”
“Hold, sir,” she cried with indignation, as she fixed upon him a look even more penetrating than that he so well remembered. “I have nothing to retract–nothing to be ashamed of. I came here out of pure sympathy, to make amends to one who has fallen for a prayer which burst from me in my anger. Your friend, who called for me, told me that you were a prisoner, and that your imprisonment was the consequence of the wager which it fell to me to decide. I did not come to repeat to you what I said before, that I am not the mother of the boy, but to make an explanation.”
“And I have one to ask,” said he.
“I am ready to answer.”
“How could I be deceived?” said he. “I heard the boy address you as his mother.”
“And that is what I came to explain. I have taxed my memory since Mr. Campbell insisted, in my presence, that Frederick did address me in the manner you have stated. Shall I tell you the precise words he used?”
“I wait for them.”
“Well, they were, ‘See ma.'”
“The very words; and were they not enough for proof and belief?”
“Yes, sir; but there are words which have two significations. Ma’ is the contraction, as you know, for mamma, but it is pronounced the same as _maw_, which is a word which we use to designate those birds otherwise called gulls. I recollect that while I was unable to bear the sight of the tortured bird, and had turned my head in another direction, my nephew kept looking over the rails, and that, as he saw the struggling creature, he cried out to me the words you misconstrued. And thus the mystery is cleared up.”
“Miserable and fatal error,” he gasped out, as he staggered back. “And the connection!–the connection! There _was_ retribution in those diamond eyes.”
“What mean you, sir?”
“The bird’s eyes that haunt me in my reveries, and enter into the sockets of my dream-beings!”
“Are you mad?”
“No; or the heavens are mad, with their swirling orbs and blazing comets, that rush sighing through space before some terrible power that will give them no respite, except with the condition that when they rest they die.”
“Poor youth! so early doomed; I pity you.”
“Ay, pity those who have no pity–those are the truly wretched; for pity, in the world’s life, is the soul of reason’s action. Ah, madam, it is those who have pity who do not need the pity of others, for they are generally free from the faults that produce the unhappiness that needs pity.”
“But you have been punished, I admit, in a very strange and mysterious way; for the word used by the boy was the joining link of the two transactions, and you were led to misconstrue it–ay, and to take advantage of your misconstruction to get the better of your friend.”
“I see it all.”
“But I say you have been punished,” continued she, consolingly; “and I perceive you are penitent–perhaps justice is satisfied; and when you are liberated, you may be the better for the lesson. I shall now reverse my prayer, and say to one I shall perhaps never see again, May God deal mercifully by you.”
And with these words, she retreated. But her prayer was never answered, so far as man can judge of heaven’s mysterious ways. The conviction settled down and down into his heart, that that apparently simple affair of killing a bird–which, even with the aggravation of all the cruelty exhibited by the thoughtless, yet certainly pitiless youth, is so apt to be viewed carelessly, or only with an avowal of disapprobation–which, if too much insisted on as an act to be taken up by superior retribution, is more apt still to be laughed at–was the cause of all the ills that had befallen him. The diamond eyes proved to him no fancy. But for all this, we are afforded, by what subsequently occurred, some means of explanation, which will be greedily laid hold of by minute philosophers. Even then it was to have been feared that the seeds of consumption had been deposited in favourable soil. In our difficulties about explanations of mental phenomena, we readily flee to diseases of the body, which, after all, only removes the mystery a step or two back in the dark.
It remains for me to add some words of personal experience. A considerable period after these occurrences, I had occasion–by a connection with a medium through which Dewhurst received from his father, whose fortunes had in the meantime failed, a petty allowance–to be the bearer to him, now liberated, of a quarter’s payment. I forget the part of the town where I found him, but I have a distinct remembrance of the room. It was a garret, almost entirely empty. He was lying on a kind of bed spread upon the floor. There was a small grate, with a handful of red cinders in it; only one chair, and a pot or pan or two. There was a woman moving between him and the fireplace, as if she had been preparing some warm drink or medicine of some kind for him. I did not know then, but I knew afterwards, that that woman was she who called upon him in prison, and deposited the small bottle of wine. Her love for him had always overcome any of those feelings of enmity, or something stronger, generally deemed so natural in one who has been robbed of her dearest treasure, and ruined. She alone had indeed not assumed the diamond eyes. The diamonds were elsewhere,–yea, in her heart, where she nourished pity for him who had so cruelly deserted her, and left her to a fate so common, and requiring only a hint to be understood by those who know the nature of women. After he had got out of prison, she sought him out, got the room for him, collected the paltry articles, procured food for him, and continued to nurse him till his death, with all the tenderness of a lover who had not only not been cast off, but cherished. He betrayed the ordinary symptoms of consumption, and the few words he muttered were those of thanks. I think he was buried in the Canongate Churchyard.
DAVID LORIMER.
“There is a history in all men’s lives.”–SHAKSPEARE.
It has been often said, and, I believe, with truth, that there are few persons, however humble in station, whose life, if it has been of any duration, does not present some incidents of an interesting, if not instructive, nature.
Induced by a belief in this assertion as a general truth, and yet further by an opinion that, in my own particular case, there are occurrences which will be considered somewhat extraordinary, I venture to lay the following sketch of my life before the reader, in the hope that it will not be found altogether devoid of interest.
With the earlier part of my history, which had nothing whatever remarkable in it, I need not detain the reader further than to say that my father was, though not a wealthy, a respectable farmer in Lanarkshire; that he lived at—-, within fourteen miles of Glasgow; that I was well educated; and that, at the period when I take up my own history, I was in the eighteenth year of my age.
Having given these two or three particulars, I proceed:
It was in the year 18–, and during the week of the Glasgow Fair, which occurs in July, that my father, who had a very favourable opinion of my intelligence and sagacity, resolved to entrust me with a certain important mission. This was to send me to the fair of Glasgow to purchase a good draught horse for him.
I am not sure, however, that, with all the good opinion my father entertained of my shrewdness, he would have deputed me on the present occasion had he been able to go himself; but he was not able, being confined to bed by a severe attack of rheumatism. Be this as it may, however, the important business was put into my hands; and great was the joy it occasioned me, for it secured me in an opportunity of seeing Glasgow Fair–a scene which I had long desired to witness, and which I had seen only once when but a very young boy.
From the moment I was informed by my father of his intention of sending me to the fair, and which was only on the day preceding that on which the horse-market is held, my imagination became so excited that I could attend to nothing. I indeed maintained some appearance of working–for though the son of a farmer, I wrought hard–but accomplished little of the reality.
The joys and the splendours of Glasgow Fair, of which I had a dim but captivating recollection, rose before my mind’s eye in brilliant confusion, putting to rout all other thoughts, and utterly paralyzing all my physical energies. Nor was the succeeding night less blessed with happy imaginings. My dreams were filled with visions of shows, Punch’s opera, rope-dancers, tumblers, etc. etc., and my ears rang with the music of fiddles, bugles, tambourines, and bass drums. It was a delicious night with me; but the morning which brought an approach to the reality was still more so.
Getting up betimes, I arrayed myself in my best attire; which attire, as I well recollect, consisted of a white corduroy jacket, knee-breeches of the same colour and material, and a bright-red waistcoat. A “neat Barcelona,” tied carelessly round my neck, and a pair of flaming-red garters, at least two inches broad, wound round my legs just below the knee, and ending in a knot with two dependent ends hanging down, that waved jauntily as I walked, completed my equipment.
Thus arrayed, and with thirty pounds in my pocket to purchase a horse for my father, I took the road, stick in hand, for Glasgow.
It was a fine summer morning. I was in high spirits; and, in my red waistcoat and red garters, looked, I believe, as tight and comely a lad as might be seen.
Pushing on with a light heart and light step, I quickly reached the suburbs of the city, and in a few minutes more was within view and earshot of the sights and sounds of the fair. I saw the crowd; I got a glimpse of the canvas roofs of the shows at the end of the old bridge–the locality on which the fair was then held; and heard the screaming and braying of the cracked trumpets, the clanging of the cymbals, and the thunders of the bass drums.
My heart beat high on hearing these joyous sounds. I quickened my pace, and in a few seconds was in the thick of the throng that crowded the space in front of the long line of shows extending from the bridge to the Bridgegate. As it was yet several hours to the height of the horse-market, I resolved on devoting that interval to seeing some of the interesting sights which stood in such tempting array before me.
The first that fixed my regard was “The Great Lancashire Giant,” whose portrait at full length–that is, at the length of some fifteen or twenty feet–flapped on a sheet of canvas nearly as large as the mainsail of a Leith smack.
This extraordinary personage was represented, in the picture, as a youth of sixteen, dressed in a ruffled shirt, a red jacket, and white trousers; and his exhibitor assured the spectators that, though but a boy, he already measured nine feet in height and seven feet round the body; that each of his shoes would make a coffin for a child of five years old, and every stocking hold a sack of flour. Six full-grown persons, he added, could be easily buttoned within his waistcoat; and his tailor, he asserted, was obliged to mount a ladder when he measured him for a jacket.
Deeply interested by the astounding picture of this extraordinary youth, and the still more astounding description given of him by his exhibitor, I ascended the little ladder that conducted to the platform in front of the show, paid my twopence–the price of admission–and in the next minute was in the presence of “The Great Lancashire Giant;” a position which enabled me to make discoveries regarding that personage that were not a little mortifying.
In the first place, I found that, instead of being a youth of sixteen, he was a man of at least six-and-thirty; in the next, that if it had not been for the raised dais on which he stood, the enormous thickness of the soles of his shoes, and the other palpably fictitious contrivances and expedients by which his dimensions were enlarged, he would not greatly have exceeded the size of my own father. I found, in short, that the tremendous “Lancashire Giant” was merely a pretty tall man, and nothing more.
Quitting this exhibition, and not a little displeased at being so egregiously bitten, I passed on to the next, which was “Mr. Higgenbotham’s Royal Menagerie. The Noblest Collection of Wild Beasts ever seen in the Civilised World.”
This was a splendid affair. On a narrow stage in front were seated four fat red-faced musicians, in beef-eater coats, puffing and blowing on bugles and trombones. Close by these, stood a thin, sharp-eyed, sallow-complexioned man in plain clothes, beating a huge drum, and adding the music of a set of Pandean pipes, which were stuck into his bosom, to the general harmony. This was Mr. Higgenbotham himself.
But it was the paintings on the immense field of canvas above that particularly attracted my attention. On this field were exhibited an appalling collection of the most terrific monsters: lions, as large as cows, gambolling amongst rocks; ourang-outangs, of eight feet in height, walking with sticks in their hands, as grave and stately as drum-majors; and a serpent, as thick as a hogshead, and of interminable length–in truth, without any beginning, middle, or end–twining round an unfortunate black, and crushing him to death in its enormous folds.
All this was irresistible. So up the stair I sprang, paid my sixpence, and in a moment after found myself in the centre of the well-saw dusted area in the interior, gazing on the various birds and beasts in the cages around me. It was by no means a perplexing task; for, as in the case of “The Great Lancashire Giant,” the fulfilment of the inside but little corresponded with the promise of the out. The principal part of the collection I found to consist of half-a-dozen starved monkeys, as many parrots–grey and green, an indescribable monster, in a dark corner, strongly suspected by some of the spectators of being a boy in a polar bear’s skin, a bird of paradise, and a hedgehog, which they dignified with the name of a porcupine.
“Whaur’s the lions, and the teegers, and the elephants, and the boy instructor, and the black man?” said a disappointed countryman, addressing a fellow in a short canvas frock or overall, who was crossing the area with a bucket of water.
“Ah! them’s all in the other caravan,” replied the man, “vich should ‘ave been here on Monday night, but hasn’t coom yet, and we suppose has broken down by the way; but there’s a hanimal worth ’em all,” he added, pointing to the indescribable monster in the dark corner. “The most curiousest ever was seen. Take a look on him; and if you don’t own he is, I’ll heat him, skin and all. They calls him the great Guampa from South America.”
Having said this, the fellow, desirous, for reasons best known to himself, to avoid further questioning, hurried away, and disappeared at a side door.
It was just as this man left us, and as the small crowd of spectators, of whom I was one, who had surrounded him, were dispersing, that a gentleman–or a person, at least, who had the air and manner of one, although somewhat broken down in his apparel–came close up to me, and whispered in my ear, in a perfectly calm and composed tone–
“My lad, you are robbed.”
With a start of horror, and a face as pale as death, I clapped my hand on the outside of my buttoned jacket, to feel for my pocket-book, which I carefully deposited in an inside pocket. It was gone.
“Be calm–be composed, my lad,” said the gentleman, marking my excessive agitation, and seeing that I was about to make some outcry. “The fellows will bolt on the least alarm; and as there are three or four of them, may force their way out, if driven to extremity. Leave the matter to me, and I’ll manage it for you.”
During all this time, the stranger, who had spoken in a very low tone, carefully abstained from looking towards those of whom he was speaking, and wore such an air of composure and indifference, that no one could possibly have suspected for a moment what was the subject of his communication to me.
Having made this communication, and desired me to remain where I was, and to exhibit no symptom of anything particular having happened, my friend, as I could not but reckon him, went out for an instant.
When he returned, he kept hovering about the entrance into the show, as if to prevent the egress of any one, but without making any sign to me, or even looking at me. My agitation during this interval was excessive; and although I strictly obeyed my friend’s injunctions, notwithstanding that I knew not to what they were to lead, I could not suppress the dreadful feelings by which I was distracted. I, however, did all I could to refrain from exhibiting any outward sign of consciousness of my loss.
To return to my friend. He had not stood, I think, more than a minute at the entrance to the menagerie, when I observed three fellows, after having winked to each other, edging towards it. My friend, on seeing them approach, planted himself in the doorway, and, addressing the first, at the same time extending his arms to keep him back, said–
“Stop a moment, my lad, I have something to say to you.”
The fellow seemed taken aback for a moment by this salutation; but, quickly regaining his natural effrontery, he, with a tremendous oath, made an attempt to push past, when four policemen suddenly presented themselves at the entrance.
“Come away, my lads,” said my friend, addressing them. “Just in time; a minute later, and the birds would have been flown. Guard the door there a moment.” Then, turning to the astonished spectators who were assembled in the area–“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “there has been a robbery committed here within these fifteen minutes. I saw it done, and know the person who did it; but as he has several colleagues here, all of whom I may not have discovered, I have no doubt that the pocket-book–the article stolen–has been long since transferred to other hands than those that first took it. It is therefore necessary that we should all, without any exception, submit to a search of our persons by the officers here.”
No objection to this proceeding having been offered by any of the persons present, the search began; my friend submitting himself the first.
The operation was a tedious one; for it was unsuccessful. One after another, including the three suspicious characters already alluded to, was searched, but no pocket-book was found. At length, the last person was taken in hand; and he, too, proved innocent–at least of the possession of my lost treasure.
I was in despair at this result, thinking that my friend must have been mistaken as to the robbery–that is, as to his having witnessed it–and that my money was irretrievably gone. No such despair of the issue, however, came over my friend–he did not appear in the least disconcerted; but, on the completion of the fruitless search, merely nodded his head, uttering an expressive humph.
“It’s gone,” said I to him in bitter anguish.
“Patience a bit, my lad,” he replied, with a smile. “The pocket-book is within these four walls, and we’ll find it too.”
Turning now to one of the men belonging to the establishment, he desired him to bring one of the rakes with which they levelled the sawdust in the area.
It was brought; when he set the man to work with it–to rake up, slowly and deliberately, the surface of the sawdust, himself vigilantly superintending the operation, and directing the man to proceed regularly, and to leave no spot untouched. I need not say with what intense interest I watched this proceeding. I felt as if life or death were in the issue; for the loss of such a sum as L30, although it could not, perhaps, be considered a very great one, was sufficiently large to distress my father seriously; and already some idea of never facing him again, should the money not be recovered, began to cross my mind.
All thoughts, however, of this or any other kind were absorbed, for the moment, by the deep interest which I took in the operations of the man with the rake; an interest this in which all present, less or more, participated.
For a long while this search also was fruitless. More than half the area had been gone over, and there was yet no appearance of my lost treasure.
At length, however–oh! how shall I describe the joy I felt?–a sweep of the rake threw the well-known pocket-book on the surface of the sawdust. I darted on it, clutched it, tore it open, and saw the bank-notes apparently untouched. I counted them. They were all there.
“I thought so; I thought we should find it,” said, with a calm smile, the gentleman who had been so instrumental in its recovery.
The whole proceedings of the thief or thieves, so promptly and correctly conjectured by my friend, were now obvious. Finding that passing it from hand to hand would not avail them, he who was last in possession of it had, on the search commencing, dropt it on the ground, and shuffled it under the sawdust with his foot.
The police now requested my friend to point out the person who had committed the robbery, that they might apprehend him; but this he declined, saying that he was not quite sure of the man, and that he would not like to run the risk of blaming an innocent person; adding, with the quiet smile that seemed to be natural to him, that as the money was recovered, it might be as well to let the matter drop. The police for some time insisted on my friend pointing out the man; but as he continued firmly to decline interfering further in the matter, they gave it up and left the place.
Every one saw that it was benevolence, however impoperly exerted, that induced my friend to refuse giving up the culprit; and as I had now recovered my money, I felt pretty much in the same disposition–that was, to allow him to fall into other hands.
I now presented the man who had been employed to rake the area with five shillings, for his trouble. But how or in what way was I to reward the friendly person to whom I was wholly indebted for the recovery of my pocket-book? This puzzled me sadly. Money, at least any such sum as I could spare, I could not offer one who, notwithstanding the little deficiencies in his apparel formerly noticed, had so much the appearance and manner of a gentleman. I was greatly at a loss. In the meantime, my friend and I left the exhibition together; he lecturing me the while, although in the most kindly manner, on the danger of going into crowded places with large sums of money about one’s person.
He said he had seen a good deal of the world, had resided long in London, and knew all the tricks of the swell mob.
“It was my knowledge and experience of these gentry,” he added, “that enabled me to manage your little matter so successfully.” We were at this time passing along Stockwell Street, when, observing a respectable-looking tavern, it struck me that I might, without offence, ask my friend to take a little refreshment,–a glass of wine or so.
With some hesitation, I proposed it.
He smiled; and as if rather complying with my humour, or as if unwilling to offend me by a refusal, said, “Well, my young friend, I have no objection, although I am not greatly in the habit of going to taverns. Not there, however,” he added, seeing me moving towards the house on which I had fixed my eye. “There is a house in the Saltmarket, which, on the rare occasions I do go to a tavern, and that is chiefly for a sight of the papers, I always frequent. They are decent, respectable people. So we’ll go there, if you please; that is, if it be quite the same to you.”
I said it was, and that I would cheerfully accompany him wherever he chose.
This point settled, we proceeded to the Saltmarket; when my friend, who, by the way, had now told me that his name was Lancaster, conducted me up a dark, dirty-looking close, and finally into a house of anything but respectable appearance. The furniture was scanty, and what was of it much dilapidated: half the backs of half the chairs were broken off, the tables were dirty and covered with stains and the circular marks of drinking measures. A tattered sofa stood at one end of the apartment, the walls were hung with paltry prints, and the small, old-fashioned, dirty windows hung with dirtier curtains.
To crown all, we met, as we entered, a huge, blowzy, tawdrily dressed woman, of most forbidding appearance, who, I was led to understand, was the mistress of the house. Between this person and Mr. Lancaster I thought I perceived a rapid secret signal pass as we came in, but was not sure.
All this–namely, the appearance of the house and its mistress, the shabbiness of the entrance to the former, the secret signal, etc. etc.–surprised me a little; but I suspected nothing wrong–never dreamt of it.
On our taking our seats in the apartment into which we had been shown, I asked my good genius, Mr. Lancaster, what he would choose to drink.
He at once replied that he drank nothing but wine; spirits and malt liquors, he said, always did him great injury.
But too happy to be able to contribute in any way to the gratification of one who had rendered me so essential a service, I immediately ordered a bottle of the best port, he having expressed a preference for that description of wine.
It was brought; when Mr. Lancaster, kindly assuming the character of host, quickly filled our glasses, when we pledged each other and drank.
Wine, at that time, was no favourite liquor of mine, so that I soon began to show some reluctance to swallowing it.
Mr. Lancaster, perceiving this, began to banter me on my abstemiousness, and to urge me to do more justice to the wine, which he said was excellent.
Prevailed on partly by his urgency, and partly by a fear of displeasing him by further resistance, I now took out my glass as often as he filled it.
The consequence was, that I soon felt greatly excited; and eventually so much so, that I not only readily swallowed bumper after bumper, but, when our bottle was done, insisted on another being brought in; forgetting everything but my debt of gratitude to Mr. Lancaster, and losing sight, for the moment at any rate, of all my obligations, in the delight with which I listened to his entertaining conversation. For another half hour we went on merrily, and the second bottle of wine was nearly finished, when I suddenly felt a strange sinking sensation come over me. The countenance of Mr. Lancaster, who sat opposite me, seemed to disappear, as did also all the objects with which I was surrounded.
From that moment I became unconscious of all that passed. I sank down on the floor in the heavy sleep, or rather in the utter insensibility, of excessive intoxication.
On awaking, which was not until a late hour of the night, I found the scene changed. The room was dark, the bottles and glasses removed, and my friend Mr. Lancaster gone.
It was some seconds before I felt myself struck by this contrast; that is, before I fully recollected the circumstances which had preceded my unconsciousness. These, however, gradually unfolded themselves, until the whole stood distinctly before me. After having sat up for a second or two–for I found myself still on the floor when I awoke, having been left to lie where I fell–and having recalled all the circumstances of the day’s occurrences, I instinctively clapped my hand to the breast of my jacket to feel for my pocket-book. It was again gone. Thinking at first that it might have dropt out while I slept, I began groping about the floor; but there was no pocket-book there. In great alarm I now started to my feet, and began calling on the house. My calls were answered by the landlady herself, who, with a candle in her hand, and a fierce expression of face, flushed apparently with drink, entered the apartment, and sternly demanded what I wanted, and what I meant by making such a noise in her house.
Taking no notice of the uncourteous manner in which she had addressed me, I civilly asked her what had become of Mr. Lancaster.
“Who’s Mr. Lancaster?” she said fiercely. “I know no Mr. Lancaster.”
“The gentleman,” I replied, “who came in here with me, and who drank wine with me.”
“I know nothing about him,” said the virago; “I never saw him before.”
“That’s strange,” said I; “he told me that he was in the habit of frequenting this house.”
“If he did so, he told you a lie,” replied the lady; “and I tell you again, that I know nothing about him, and that I never saw him before, nor ever expect to see him again.”
I now informed her that I missed a pocket-book containing a considerable sum of money, and, simply enough, asked her if she had it, or knew anything about it.
At this, her rage, which before she seemed to have great difficulty in controlling, burst out in the wildest fury.
“I know nothing about your pocket-book,” she exclaimed, stamping passionately on the floor; “nor do I believe you had one. It’s all a fetch to bilk me out of my reckoning; but I’ll take care of you, you swindler! I’m not to be done that way. Come, down with the price of the two bottles of wine you and your pal drank–fifteen shillings–or I’ll have the worth of them out of your skin.” And she flourished the candlestick in such a way as led me to expect every instant that it would descend on my skull.
Terrified by the ferocious manner and threatening attitude of the termagant, and beginning to feel that the getting safe out of the house ought to be considered as a most desirable object, I told her, in the most conciliatory manner I could assume, that I had not a farthing beyond two or three shillings, which she was welcome to; all my money having been in the pocket-book which I had lost–I dared not say of which I had been robbed.
“Let’s see what you have, then,” she said, extending her hand to receive the loose silver I had spoken of. I gave it to her.
“Now,” she said, “troop, troop with you; walk off, walk off,” motioning me towards the outer door, “and be thankful you have got off so cheaply, after swindling me out of my reckoning, and trying to injure the character of my house.”
But too happy at the escape permitted me, I hurried out of the house, next down the stair–a pretty long one–at a couple of steps, and rushed into the street.
I will not here detain the reader with any attempt at describing my feelings on this occasion: he will readily conceive them, on taking into account all the circumstances connected with my unhappy position. My money gone now, there was no doubt, irretrievably; the market over, no horse bought, the hour late, and I an entire stranger in the city, without a penny in my pocket; my senses confused, and a mortal sickness oppressing me, from the quantity of wine I had drunk, and which, I began to suspect, had been drugged.
Little as I was then conversant with the ways of the town, I knew there was but one quarter where I could apply or hope for any assistance in the recovery of my property. This was the police office.
Thither I accordingly ran, inquiring my way as I went–for I knew not where it was–with wild distraction in my every look and movement.
On reaching the office, I rushed breathlessly into it, and began telling my story as promptly and connectedly as my exhaustion and agitation would permit. My tale was patiently listened to by the two or three men whom I found on duty in the office. When I had done, they smiled and shook their heads; expressions which I considered as no good augury of the recovery of my pocket-book.
One of the men–a sergeant apparently–now put some minute queries to me regarding the personal appearance of my friend Mr. Lancaster. I gave him the best description of that gentleman I could; but neither the sergeant nor any of the others seemed to recognise him. They had no doubt, however, they said, that he was a professed swindler, and in all probability one of late importation into the city; that there was little question that he was the person who had robbed me; adding, what was indeed obvious enough, that he had assisted in the recovery of my pocket-book from the first set of thieves who assailed me, that he might secure it for himself.
The house in the Saltmarket, which I also described as well as I could, they knew at once, saying it was one of the most infamous dens in the city. The men now promised that they would use every exertion in their power to recover my money, but gave me to understand that there was little or no hope of success. The event justified their anticipations. They could discover no trace of Lancaster; and as to the house in the Saltmarket, there was not the slightest evidence of any connection whatever between its mistress, or any other of its inmates, and either the robber or the robbery. The police indeed searched the house; but of course to no purpose.
Being, as I have already said, penniless, and thus without the means of going anywhere else, I remained in the police office all night; and, in the hope every hour of hearing something of my pocket-book, hung about it all next day till towards the evening, when the sergeant, of whom I have before spoken, came up to me as I was sauntering about the gate, and told me that it was useless my hanging on any longer about the office; that all would be done in my case that could be done; but that, in the meantime, I had better go home, leaving my address; and that if anything occurred, I would instantly be informed of it. “But I think it but right to tell you, young man,” he added, “that there is scarcely any chance whatever of your ever recovering a sixpence of your money. I mention this to prevent you indulging in any false hopes. It is best you should know the worst at once.”
Satisfied that the man spoke truly, and that it was indeed useless my hanging on any longer, I gave him my name and address, and went away, although it was with a heavy heart, and without knowing whither I should go; for to my father’s house I could not think of returning, after what had happened. I would not have faced him for the world. In this matter, indeed, I did my father a great injustice; for although a little severe in temper, he was a just and reasonable man, and would most certainly have made all allowances for what had occurred to me.
The determination–for it now amounted to that–to which I had come, not to return home, was one, therefore, not warranted by any good reason; it was wholly the result of one of those mad impulses which so frequently lead youthful inexperience into error.
On leaving the vicinity of the police office, I sauntered towards the High Street without knowing or caring whither I went. Having reached the street just named, I proceeded downwards, still heedless of my way, until I found myself in the Saltmarket, the scene of my late disaster.
Curiosity, or perhaps some vague, absurd idea of seeing something or other, I could not tell what, that might lead to the recovery of my pocket-book, induced me to look about me to see if I could discover the tavern in which I had been robbed. I was thus employed–that is, gaping and staring at the windows of the lower flats of the houses on either side of the street, for I did not recollect on which was the house I wanted–when a smart little man, dressed in a blue surtout, with a black stock about his neck, and carrying a cane in his hand, made up to me with a–
“Looking for any particular place, my lad?”
Taken unawares, and not choosing to enter into any explanations with a stranger, I simply answered, “No, no.”
“Because if you were,” continued my new acquaintance, “I should have been glad to have helped you. But I say, my lad–excuse me,” he went on, now looking earnestly in my face, and perceiving by my eyes that I had been weeping, which was indeed the case–“you seem to be distressed. What has happened you? I don’t ask from any impertinent curiosity, but from sympathy, seeing you are a stranger.”
Words of kindness in the hour of distress, by whomsoever offered, at once find their way to the heart, and open up the sluices of its pent-up feelings. The friendly address of the stranger had this effect on me in the present instance. I told him at once what had occurred to me.
“Bad business, my lad; bad business indeed,” he said. “But don’t be cast down. Fair weather comes after foul. You’ll soon make all up again.”
This was commonplace enough comfort; but without minding the words, the intention was good, and with that I was gratified.
My new friend, who had learnt from what I told him that I was penniless, now proposed that I should take share of a bottle of ale with him. Certain recollections of another friend, namely, Mr. Lancaster, made me hesitate, indeed positively decline, this invitation at first; but on my new acquaintance pressing his kindness, and the melancholy truth occurring to me that I had now no pocket-book to lose, I yielded, and accompanied him to a tavern at the foot of the High Street. I may add that I was the more easily induced to this, that I was in a dreadful state of exhaustion, having tasted nothing in the shape of either food or drink for nearly thirty hours.
Having entered the tavern, a bottle of ale and a plate of biscuit quickly stood before us. My entertainer filled up the glasses; when, having presented me with one, he raised his own to his lips, wished me “better luck,” and tossed it off. I quickly followed his example, and never before or since drank anything with so keen a relish. After we had drunk a second glass each–
“Well, my lad,” said my new acquaintance, “what do you propose doing? Do you intend returning to the plough-tail, eh? I should hardly think you’ll venture home again after such a cursed mishap.”
I at once acknowledged that I did not intend returning home again; but as to what I should do, I did not know.
“Why, now,” replied my entertainer, “I think a stout, good-looking, likely young fellow as you are need be at no loss. There’s the army. Did you ever think of that, eh? The only thing for a lad of spirit. Smart clothes, good living, and free quarters, with a chance of promotion. The chance, said I? Why, I might say the certainty. Bounty too, you young dog! A handful of golden guineas, and pretty girls to court in every town. List, man, list,” he shouted, clapping me on the shoulder, “and your fortune’s made!”
List! It had never occurred to me before. I had never thought, never dreamt of it. But now that the idea was presented to me, I by no means disliked it. It was not, however, the flummery of my new acquaintance, who, I need hardly say, was neither more nor less than a sergeant in coloured clothes, assumed, I suppose, for the purpose of taking young fellows like myself unawares,–I say it was not his balderdash, which, young and raw as I was, I fully perceived, that reconciled me to the notion of listing. It was because I saw in it a prompt and ready means of escaping the immediate destitution with which I was threatened, my foolish determination not to return home having rather gained strength than weakened, notwithstanding a painful sense of the misery which my protracted absence must have been occasioning at home. To the sergeant’s proposal of listing, therefore, I at once assented; when the former