Chapter II: Part 2

I soon saw that I had a difficult case in hand, and I told Mr Jackson as much. The thieves were of the regular mould. I had no personal traces to trust to, and the articles taken away were of so meltable or transferable a nature that it might not be easy to trace them. My best chance lay in the articles of dress, for, as I have already hinted, thieves deriving their right from nature have all a corresponding ambition to be gentlemen. There's something curious here. Those who work their way up by honest industry seldom think of strutting about in fine clothes. Social feelings have taken the savage out of 'em. It is the natural-born gentleman who despises work that adorns our promenades and ball-rooms. 'Tis because they have a diploma from nature; and so the thieves who work by natural instinct come slap up to them and claim an equality. Certain it is, anyhow, I never knew a regular thief who didn't think he was a gentleman, and as for getting him to forego a nobby coat from a pin, he would almost be hanged first. I have found this my cue pretty often.

I had, therefore, some hope from the coats, but while getting a description of them and the other articles I felt a kind of curiosity about the peculiarities of the musical box.

"A small thing," said Mr Jackson, "some six inches long and three broad."

"Too like the others of its kind," said I; and giving way to a whim at the moment, "What tunes does it play?"

"Why, I can hardly tell," replied he, "for it belongs rather to the females. But I think I recollect that 'The Blue-Bells of Scotland' is among them."

"Perhaps," said I, keeping up the humour of the thing, "I may thereby get an answer to the question, 'Where, tell me where, does my highland laddie dwell?'"

Mr Jackson smiled even in the midst of the wreck of his house.

"I fear," he said, "that unless you have some other clue than the tune, you won't get me back my property."

"I have done more by less than a tune," said I, not very serious, but without giving up my hope, which I have never done in any case till it gave up me.

So with my list completed, and a promise to the gentleman that independently of the joke about the box I would do my best to get hold of the robbers, as well as the property, I left him. I felt that it was not a job to be taken lightly, or rather, I should say, that I considered my character somewhat at stake, insomuch as the gentleman seemed to place faith in my name. There is an amount of routine in all inquiries of this kind. The brokers, the 'big uncles,' (the large pawns,) and the 'half uncles,' (the wee pawns,) were all to be gone through, and they were with that dodging assiduity so necessary to the success of our calling. No trace in these places, and as for seeing one of my natural gentlemen in a grand blue beaver top-coat, I could encounter no such figure. I not only could not find where my highland laddie dwelt, but I did not even know my lover. Nor did I succeed any better with those who are fond of rings, for that the jewellery had found its way among the Fancies I had little doubt. How many very soft hands I took hold of in a laughing way, to know whether they were jewelled with my cornelians or torquoises, I can't tell; but then their confidence as yet wanted the ripening of time, and I must wait upon a power that has no pity for detectives any more than for lovers.

And I did wait, yet not so long as that the tune of "The Blue-Bells of Scotland" had passed away, scared though it was by the hoarse screams and discords of crime and misery. One evening I was on the watch-saunter, still the old dodging way by which I have earned more than ever I did by sudden jerks of enthusiasm. I turned down Blackfriars' Wynd, and proceeded till I came to the shop of Mr Henry Devlin, who kept in that quarter a tavern, which, without reproach to the landlord, was haunted by those gentlemen who owe so much to nature. Now, I pray you, don't think I am a miracle-monger. I make the statement deliberately, and defy your suspicions when I say, that just as I came to the door of the tavern, which was open, and by the door of which I could see into a small room off the bar, my attention was arrested by a low and delicate sound. I placed my head by the edge of the open door and listened. The sound was that of a musical box. The tune was so low and indistinct that I held my breath, as if thereby I could increase the watchfulness of my ear. "It is! it is!" I muttered. Yes, it was "The Blue-Bells of Scotland." The charmed instrument ceased; and so enamoured had I been for the few seconds, that I found myself standing in the attitude of a statue for minutes after the cause of my enchantment had renounced its power.

With a knowledge of what you here anticipate, I claim the liberty of a pause, to enable me to remark, that though utterly unfit to touch questions of so ticklish a nature, I have had reason to think, in my blunt way, that in nine cases out of ten there is something mysterious in the way of Providence towards the discovery of crime. Just run up the history of almost any detective you please, and you will come to the semblance of a trace so very minute that you may view it either as a natural or a mysterious thing, just according to your temperament and your point of view. As a philosopher, and a little hardened against the supernatural, you may treat my credulity as you think proper. I don't complain, provided you admit that I am entitled to my weakness; but bearing in mind at the same time, that there are always working powers which make a considerable fool of our reasoning. Take it as you may, and going no further than the musical box, explain to me how I should have that night gone down Blackfriars' Wynd, and come to Henry Devlin's door just as "The Blue-Bells of Scotland" was being played by that little bit of machinery. You may go on with your thoughts as I proceed to tell you, that recovering myself from my surprise I entered the house. I did not stop at the bar where Mrs Devlin was, but proceeded direct into the room into which I could see from the door, and there, amidst empty tankards, I found the little instrument which had so entranced me, mute and tuneless, just as if it had been conscious that it had done some duty imposed upon it, and left the issue to the Power that watches over the fortunes of that ungrateful creature, man.

Taking up the monitor, which on the instant became dead to me,

"How came this here?" I said to the landlady, who seemed to be watching my movements.

"Indeed, I can hardly tell, Mr M'Levy," replied she, "unless it was left by the twa callants wha were in drinking, and gaed out just before you cam in. Did you no meet them?"

"No."

"Then they maun hae gaen towards the Cowgate as you cam by the High Street."

I paused an instant as an inconsistency occurred to me.

"But they couldn't have forgotten a thing that was making sounds at the very moment they left?"

"Aye, but they did though," replied the woman. "The thing had been kept playin' a' the time they were drinking, and was playin' when they paid their score, and the sound being drowned in the clatter o' the payment, they had just forgotten it even as I did. It plays twa or three tunes," she added, "and among the lave 'The Blue-Bells of Scotland,' a tune I aye liked, for ye ken I'm Scotch."

"And I like it too," replied I, "though I'm Irish; but do you know the lads?"

"Weel--I do, and I dinna. Ane o' them has been here afore, and if you were to mention his name, I think I could tell you if it was the right ane."

"Shields," said I.

"The very name," said she, "and if I kenned whaur he lived I would send the box to him."

"I will save you that trouble, Mrs Devlin," said I, as I put it in my pocket.

"I never took you for a thief, Mr M'Levy," said she, in a half humorous way. "I aye took ye for a thief catcher."

"And it's just to catch the thief I take the box," said I. "You can speak to the men if I bring them here?"

"Brawly."

And so I left the tavern. I had got my trace, and knew where to go for my men, and I had, moreover, a well-grounded suspicion not only as regarded him whose name I had mentioned, but also his companion. I sent immediately for two constables, and having procured these, and been joined by my assistant, I proceeded to Brodie's Close in the Cowgate. Arriving at the foot of a stair, I planted there my constables, and mounted till I came to a door familiar to me on prior occasions. I gave my quiet knock,--a signal so regular, that, as I have sometimes heard, it was known as "M'Levy's warning." Whether known as such now, or not, I cannot say, but it was quickly enough responded to by no less a personage than the famous Lucky Shields herself. The moment she saw me she recoiled, but only for an instant, and then tried to detain me--the ordinary sign that I should be in. Without saying a word I pushed her back, and making my way forward, got at once into the middle of one of those scenes of which the quiet normal people of the world have no more idea than they have of what is going on in the molten regions of the middle of the earth, on the surface of which they are plucking roses. A large room, where the grandees of a former time drank their claret to the tune of "Lewie Gordon;" all about the sides a number of beds--one or two rattled up of pine stumps--another with black carved legs, which had supported fair dames long since passed away, alongside another with no more pretensions to decayed grandeur than could be put forth by a sack of chaff and a horsecloth. Close to that a ragged arm-chair, with a bundle of hay rolled up in an old napkin, to serve when there was an additional lodger. A number of chairs, marrowless, broken, and rickety; a white table in the midst of all, covered with glasses and tankards, all replete with the ring of drinking echoes, and shining in the haze of tobacco smoke, illuminated by bright gas.

My ears were more bewildered than my eyes; for the room, with its strange furniture, was familiar enough to me; but I had some difficulty for a minute or two in distinguishing the living articles. Round the fir table sat my hero of the box, Patrick Shields; alongside of him, Henry Preger,--so true an associate of Shields, as to render it impossible for me to doubt his participation in the affair at Coates Crescent; and along with these Daniel O'Hara, a gentleman with a peculiar turn of thought, which induced him to believe that a watch in another man's pocket was out of its proper place. The two first were still fuming with the effects of Mrs Devlin's whisky, and O'Hara seemed to be great, as master of the new-brewed potation, whisky-punch, which he had been handing round to the young women. I don't want to paint vividly, in my slap-dash way, where picturesqueness is only to be effected at the expense of the decencies of life, and you don't want pictures of vice. Then, what boots it to describe such women. Their variety is only a combination of traces which are as uniform as the features of sensuality. Yes, these young women, who were quite familiar to me--Agnes Marshall, Jessie Ronald, Elizabeth Livingstone, Hannah Martin, Julia Shields--were simply representatives of thousands bearing the same marks,--one, a demure but cunning catcher of hearts and purses; another, a fair and comely living temple, with a Dagon of vice stuck up in it; another, never sober except when in a police cell, and never silent except when asleep, and scarcely then, for I have heard the cry of her wild spirit as it floated in drunken dreams; and another, the best resetter in the city, from whom a century of years in prison would not have extorted a Brummagem ring of the value of a glass of whisky. If I force so much of a picture upon you, it is because, as a part of society, you deserve to know what your laws and usages produce.

It was not for a little time after I entered that the confusion of tongues ceased. Their spirits had received such an impetus from the effects of the spirituous, that the speed could not be stopped; and even when the noise was hushed, it was only after the muttering of oaths. Meanwhile, a glance told me I had got into the very heart of the reset-box of Mr Jackson's fine jewellery. Finger and ear-rings glittered in the gas-light, and the expensive coats, at the top of the fashion, made Shields and Preger look like gentlemen who had called in from Princes Street to see the jewelled beauties. I have always had my own way of dealing with such gentry. I took out my musical box, and pulling the string, set it agoing. I have heard of music that drew stones--mine drew bricks. Shields and Preger fixed their eyes wildly upon me; and the women, who knew nothing of the meaning of M'Levy's music, first shot out into a yell of laughter, and then, rising, began, in the madness of their drunkenness, to dance like so many furies, keeping time, so far as they could, to the tune of the instrument. I could account for this insensibility to danger by no other way than by supposing that they had not previously seen the box, and did not see the consequences that were likely to result from my visit.

After the hubbub ceased, I addressed my man in the first instance.

"Patrick," said I, "I am come to return your box."

"It's not mine," replied the youth; "I have nothing to do with it."

"It's mine anyhow," cried the unwary mother, who all this time was looking through the smoke like a tigress. "The spaking thing is mine anyhow, for didn't me own Julia get it from a raal gintleman to learn her to sing, and isn't what's hers mine?"

And how much more of this Irish howl I might have heard, I can't say, if the son had not shot a look into her which brought her to a sense of her imprudence.

"And it's not my box afther all, ye vagabond," she cried, in trying to retreat from her error; "for wasn't mine an ivory one, and didn't it play raal Irish tunes? Come here, Julia; is that your box?"

"No," said Julia.

"And wasn't yours raal ivory?"

"Yes," replied the girl.

"Now, didn't I tell you, you murtherin' thief, it wasn't my box. Away wid you, and never shew your ugly face here again among dacent people."

The ordinary gabble of all such interviews. I gave a nod to my assistant, and in a few minutes the constables were at my back.

"Well," said I, addressing the men, "you can carry the top-coats on your backs to the office; but as for you, ladies, there are certain finger and ear ornaments about you which, for fear you lose them, I must take."

These few simple words quieted the turmoil in an instant. I have often produced the same effect by a quiet exercise of authority. The boisterousness of vice, with no confidence to support it, runs back and oppresses the heart, which has no channel for it in the right direction; the channel has been long dried and seared.

"Search them," said I.

A process which, as regards women, we generally leave to our female searchers, but which I was obliged to have recourse to here in a superficial way to guard valuables, so easily secreted or cast away, and a process which requires promptness even to the instant; for on such an occasion, the cunning of women is developed with a subtlety transcending all belief. The hair, the hollow of the cheek, under the tongue, in the ear, up the nostrils, even the stomach being often resorted to as the receptacles of small but valuable articles. We contrived all four to dart upon the creatures at once, each seizing his prey. The suddenness of the onset took them by surprise, and in the course of a few minutes, we had collected into a shining heap nearly the whole of Mr Jackson's most valuable jewels.

We then marched the whole nine up to the Police-Office, I carrying the magic box, which, if I had been vainglorious, I would have set agoing as an appropriate accompaniment to our march up the High Street.

They were all tried on the 25th July 1843; Preger got fourteen years, and Shields ten. The women got off on the admission that they got the jewellery from Shields and Preger. I remember that, after the trial, Mr Jackson addressed me something in these terms:--

"Mr M'Levy, I owe the recovery of my property to you. I will retain my jewels, but as for the articles of apparel, I am afraid that were I to wear them I might myself become a thief; so you may dispose of them, and take the proceeds, with my thanks. The musical box I will keep as a useful secret informer; so that in the event of my house being robbed again, it may have a chance, through its melody, of recovering my property."

The Whiskers.

It may be naturally supposed that we detectives are not much given to sadness. It is, I suspect, a weakness connected with me, a tendency to meditate on the vanity of human wishes; and I should be free from the frailty, insomuch as there has been less vanity in my wishes to apprehend rogues than in the case of most other of the artistes of my order. Yet am I not altogether free from the weakness. We have a natural wish to see our friends happy around us, and this desire is the source of my little frailty; for when I find my ingenious friends off my beat, and away elsewhere, I immediately conclude they are being happy at the expense of others, and I am not there to sympathise; nor does it affect this tendency much that I am perfectly aware that my sympathy rather destroys their happiness.

I had, about April 1854, lost sight for a time of the well-known Dan Gillies. He had had my sympathies more than once, and immediately took to melancholy; but somehow or another he recovered his gaiety,--a sure enough sign that he again stood in need of my condolence. I had been told that in kindness he and his true-hearted Bess M'Diarmid had gone to the grazing on turnips, (watches,) and that I had small chance of seeing him for a time. Well, here was an occasion for a return of my fit, for wasn't Dan happy somewhere, and I not there to see. I don't say I was thinking in that particular direction on that 5th day of April when I was walking along Princes Street, for indeed I was looking for another natural-born gentleman among those who, considering they have better claims to promenade that famous street, pretend to despise those who, I have said, are nearer to natural rights than they are; but indulging in that habit of side-looking, which I fear I have borrowed from my friends, who persist in an effort to avoid a straight, honest look at me, I descried a well-known face under a fine glossy silk hat, and above a black and white dappled cravat. A glance satisfied me that the rest of the dress was in such excellent harmony that he might, two minutes before, have come out of the Club, where plush and hair-powder stands at the door. It was Dan. The grazing must have been rich to give him so smooth and velvety a coat; and to shew that he had not despised his fare, he had a yellow "shaw" stretching between the middle of his fine vest to the pocket. When a grand personage, who despises the toil which makes us all brethren, meets one of my humble, laborious order, he makes a swerve to a side, even though the wind is in another direction, to avoid the blasting infection of common humanity, and Dan was here true to his class; but as I do not discard the duties any more than the rights of nature, I overlooked the insult, and swerved in the same direction, not being confident enough, nevertheless, to infect with my touch the hand of a Blue-Vein, if not a Honeycomb.

"Why, Dan," said I, as I faced him, and somewhat interrupted his passage, "what a fine pair of whiskers you've got since I saw you. The turnips must have been reared on the real Peruvian."

"What the d----l have you to do with my whiskers?"

"One who has been the means of shaving your head," replied I, "may surely make amends by rejoicing in the growth of your fine hair elsewhere."

"None of your gibes. Be off. I owe no man anything."

"No, Dan, but every man, you know, owes you, if you can make him pay. Don't you know what's up?"

"No, and don't care."

"There's a grand ship-launch at Leith to-day."

"D----n your ship-launch!" said the Honeycomb; and pushing me aside, Dan strutted away under the indignation of the shame of my presence.

I could not help looking after him, and recollecting the remark of Lord Chesterfield on the South-Sea Islander who sat at table in the company of lords. Looking at his back, you could perceive no difference between him and a high-bred aristocrat. But the aristocrats don't mind those thin distinctions.

Having some much more important business in hand that day, all recollection of Dan and his whiskers passed out of my mind. I remember I had to meet a French lackey who could point out to me a London brewer's clerk committed to my care. The offender had run away from his employer, taking with him not only the flesh which had got so lusty upon the stout, but also a couple of thousand pounds which he ought to have deposited in a bank; nor was this even the entire amount of his depredations, for he had also contrived to abstract the brewer's wife, described by my Frenchman as a "great succulent maman of forty years," and not far from that number of stones avoirdupois. With such game in prospect, it was not likely I should trouble myself with Dan Gillies, nor did I care more for the Leith launch. The constables there could look to that, though I was not the less aware that if Dan got among the crowd there would be pockets rendered lighter, without more of a "purchase" than might be applied by a thief's fingers.

Notwithstanding of the brightness of my prospects in the morning--for I had even pictured to myself the English clerk with the "succulent maman" hanging on his arm, and together promenading Princes Street--my hopes died away as the day advanced. I had got, moreover, weary of the clatter of the lackey, and was, in short, knocked up. It might be about four o'clock, I think, when I resolved upon returning by the way of the Office, where I had some report to make before going home to dinner. I proceeded slowly along Waverley Bridge, turned past the corner of Princes Street gardens, and advanced by the back of the Bank of Scotland. I was in reality at the time looking for none of my friends. I had had enough of looking, and felt inclined rather to give my eyes a rest by directing them to the ground, after the manner of melancholy musers. As I was thus listlessly making my way, I was roused by a rapid step, and I had scarcely time to look up when I encountered my young Honeycomb of the morning. I was at first confused, and no great wonder, for there was Dan Gillies without a single hair upon his face. The moment he saw me he wanted to bolt, but the apparition prompted me on the instant to cross him, and hold him for a moment at bay.

"Dan, Dan," said I, with really as much unfeigned surprise as humour, "what has become of your whiskers, man?"

A fiery eye, and the terrible answer which sends a man to that place where one might suppose that eye had been lighted, so full of fury was it.

"Why, it's only a fair question," said I, again keeping my temper. "I might even wish to know the man who could do so clean a thing."

"What have you to do with my barber?"

"Why, now you are getting reasonable," said I; "your question is easily answered; I might want him, say on a Sunday morning, to do to me what he has done to you."

Again dispatched to the place of four letters with an oath which must have been forged there by some writhing soul, I could stay him no longer, for making a rush past me, Dan Gillies was off in the direction of the Flesh-market Close, up which I saw him turn.

His oaths still rung in my ear. I have often thought of the wonderful aptitude of the grown-up Raggediers at swearing; they begin early, if they do not lisp, in defiances of God, and you will hear the oaths ringing amidst the clink of their halfpennies as they play pitch-and-toss. Their little manhood is scarcely clothed in buckram, when they would look upon themselves as simpletons if they do not vindicate their independence by daring both man and Heaven. You may say they don't understand the terms they use. Perhaps few swearers do; but in these urchins the oaths are the sparks of the steel of their souls, and there is not one of them unprepared to shew by their cruelty that their terrible words are true feelings. It may appear whimsical in me, but I have often thought that if this firmness of character--for it is really a mental constitution--were directed and trained by education and religion in the track of duty, it would develop itself as an energy fitted for great and good things. A man like me has no voice in the Privy Council; but _literature_, as I have heard said, is a big whispering-gallery, whereby the humblest of minds may communicate with the highest. Let it be that my whisper is laughed at, as everything is grinned at or laughed at which is said for the hopefulness of our wynd reprobates; but I have learned by experience, that while the greatest vices spring from the dregs of society, the Conglomerates, as they are called in that book (which describes them so well,) "The Castes of Edinburgh," so the greatest virtues sometimes spring from the same source. How much of the vice they are _forced_ to retain, and how much of the virtue they are compelled to lose, is one of the whispers which ought to reach the ears of the great.

At the time Dan left me, I was not in this grand way of thinking. Nay, to be very plain, I was laughing in my sleeve; because, in the first place, a detective is not a Methodist preacher; and in the second place, because I have a right to my fun as well as others; and in the third place, because I came to the conclusion that Dan Gillies had some reason for shaving his whiskers which ought to interest me. In short, I had no doubt that Dan and his "wife" had been at the ship-launch.

With the laugh, I suppose, still hanging about my lips as a comfortable solace after my ineffectual hunt after the brewer's clerk and the jolly maman, I entered the Office, where the first information I got was, that a lady had been robbed of her purse at Leith, and that a young wench was in hands there as having been an accomplice along with a swell of a pickpocket who had escaped.

"I was thinking as much," said I, with a revival of my laugh; "I know the man."

And so I might well say, for I had now got to the secret of the shaved whiskers.

"What mean you?" said the lieutenant.

"Why, just that if you want the man, I will bring him to you. I will give you the reason of my confidence at another time."

"To be sure we want him," was the rather sharp reply of my superior.

"Then I will fetch him," said I.

And so I went direct to Brown's Close, where I knew the copartnership of Gillies and M'Diarmid formerly carried on business, both in the domestic and trading way. Domestic! what a strange word as applied to these creatures--charm, as it is, to conjure up almost all the associations which are contained in the whole round of human happiness! Yes, I say domestic; happiness is a thing of accommodation. These beings will go forth in the morning in the spring of hope, and after threading dangers which are nothing less than wonderful, jinking the throw of the loop of the line which grazes their very shoulders, and turning and doubling in a thousand directions to escape justice, they meet at nightfall to _enjoy_ the happiness of a home. The beefsteak, as it fries, gives out the ordinary sound, the plunk of the drawn cork is heard, and they narrate their hairbreadth escapes, their dangers, and their triumphs. They laugh, they sleep, but their enjoyment terminates with my knock at the door. The solitary inmate is wondering at the absence of the female without whom the word "domestic" becomes something like a mockery. It is needless to deny him affections; he has them, and she has them, as the tiger and the tigress have them. They don't complain like other folk, because they don't bark or growl at Providence; but the iron screw is in the heart. I have read its pangs in the very repression of its expression.

I had been so quick in my movements that I went right in upon my man just as he had entered, no doubt after the cautious doublings consequent upon our prior interview. The salutation given me was a growl of the wrath which had been seething in the Pappin's digestor of his heart.

"What right have you to hound me in this way?" he cried, as he closed his fist and then ground his teeth.

"Why, Dan," said I, calmly, "I'm still curious about the whiskers."

"Whiskers again," he roared.

"Aye, just the whiskers," said I. "I have told you I am curious about them, and I want to know why you parted with what you seemed so proud of?"

"Gibe on; you'll make nothing of me," he cried again. "I defy you."

"Well, but I cannot give up the whiskers in that easy way," said I, "because I have an impression that if the lady in Leith had not lost her purse, your whiskers would still have clothed your cheeks."

From which cheeks the colour fled in an instant. Even to the hardest of criminals the pinch of a fact is like the effect of a screw turned upon the heart. It is only we who can observe the changes of their expression. Dan knew, in short, that he was caught; and I have before remarked that the regular thieves can go through the business of a detection in a regular way.

"Well," he said, as he felt the closing noose, and with even a kind of grim smile, "I might as well have kept my hair."

"Never mind," said I, "it will have time to grow in the jail. Come along. The cuffs?"

"Oh no, I think you have no occasion. Them things are only for the irregulars, you know. But do you think you'll mend Daniel Gillies by the jail?"

"No," said I, "I don't expect it."

"Then why do you intend to send me there?"

"Why," replied I, in something like sympathy for one who I knew to be of those who are trained to vice before they have the choice of good or evil laid before them, "just because it is my trade."

And, strange as it may seem, I observed a tear start into his red eye.

"Your trade," said he, as he rubbed the cuff of his coat over his face, "your trade; and have you a better right to follow it than I have to pursue mine? You didn't learn yours from your father and mother, did you?"

"No, Dan, but I know you did."

"Yes, and the more's the pity," replied he, as he got even to an hysterical blubber. "I have had thoughts on the subject. Even when last in the Calton I could not sleep. Something inside told me I was wronged, but not by God--by man. I was trained by fiends who made money by what they taught me, and I have been pursued by fiends all my life. When was a good lesson ever given me, or a kindly word ever said to me, except by a preacher in the jail with a Bible in his hand? Suppose I had listened to him, and when I got out had taken that book into my hand, and had gone to the High Street and bawled out, 'Put me to a trade, employ me, and give me wages.' Who would have listened to me? A few pence from one, and the word 'hypocrite' from another, and then left to my old shifts, or starve. Take me up, but you'll never mend me by punishment."

I always knew Dan to be a clever fellow, but I was not prepared for this burst. Yet I knew in my heart it was true.

"Well," said I, "Dan, I pity you. I have often thought that if that old villain David, and that old Jezebel Meg, who were your parents, had not corrupted you, you had heart and sense to be a good boy."

"Ay, and it has often wrung my heart," he replied, "when I have seen others who were born near me, though only in Blackfriars' Wynd, respectable and happy, and I a criminal in misery by the chance of birth; but all this is of no use now. Then where's Bess, poor wretch?"

"She's in Leith jail."

"Right," cried he, as he blubbered again. "I sent her there. She was a playmate of mine, and I led her on in the path into which I was led. She might have been as good as the best of them."

And the poor fellow, throwing himself on a chair, cried bitterly.

I have encountered more than one of these scenes. They have only pained me, and seldom been of any service to the victims themselves. Were a thousand such cases sent up to the Privy Council, I doubt if their obduracy in endowing ragged and industrial schools would be in the slightest degree modified.

I believe little more passed. I had my duty to perform, and Dan was not disobedient. That same evening he was sent to Leith. He was afterwards tried. He was identified by the lady and a boy who knew him, and sentenced to twelve months. Bess got off on the plea of not proven. I lost all trace of them, but have no hopes that either the one or the other was mended by the detection through the whiskers. The hair would grow again not more naturally than would spring up the old roots of evil planted by those who should have engrafted better shoots on the stock of nature.

The White Coffin.

If the Conglomerates of our old town are troubled with many miseries, as the consequences of their privations and vices, it is certain the whole squalid theatre they play their strange parts in, is the scene of more incidents, often humorous, nay romantic--if there can be a romance of low life--than can be found in the quiet saloons of the higher grades in the new town. The observation indeed is almost so trite, that I need not mention that while in the one case you have nature overlaid with the art of concealment, the slave of decorum, in the other you have the old mother, free, fresh, and frisky--her true characters, rapid movements, quick thoughts, intertwined plots, the jerks of passion, the humorous and the serious, the comedy and the melodrama of the tale of life--an idiot's one, if you please, even in the grave ranks of the highest.

In February 1837, as I was on my saunter with my faithful Mulholland among the haunts of the old town, we observed our old friends Andrew Ireland, John Templeton, and David Toppen, doubling the mouth of one of the closes leading to Paul's Work. These industrious gentry are never idle; as they carry their tools along with them, they can work anywhere; and, like the authors, a species of vagabonds who live on their wits, and steal one from another, they need no stock in trade. It was clear to me that we were unobserved, and proceeding down another close, I expected to meet them probably about their scene of action. I may mention that I was somewhat quickened in my movements by some recollections that Ireland had cost me a deal of trouble--the more by token that he was called "the Climber," as being the best hand at a scramble, when cats would shudder, in all the city, for which he had refused for some time to give me even the pledge of his body. We got down the close and round the corner, just in the nick of time to see the tail of Andrew's coat disappearing from the top of a pretty high dyke. The two others followed the example of the Climber, and when they had disappeared, we placed ourselves at the side of the wall to receive them on their descent. The cackling of fowls soon told us the nature of their work, and the gluggering of choking craigs was a clear indication that the robbers were acting on the old rule that "the dead tell no tales."

"Sure of the Climber this time," I said to my assistant. "I will seize Andrew and Templeton, and lay you hold of Toppen."

And the words were scarcely out of my mouth, when we received gratefully our friends in our arms. The dead hens were flung away, and darting at the throats of my two charges, I secured them on the instant. Mulholland lost his hold, but so pleased was I at my capture, especially of Andrew, that I could not resist a few words in my old way.

"I was afraid you would fall and break your neck, Andrew," said I.

"Thank you for the warm reception," replied the cool rogue, as he recovered breath after the short tussle.

"No apology," said I. "I have told you by a hundred looks that I wanted you."

"And sold for a hen at last," he added, with an oath.

"And not allowed to eat it," said I. "What a glorious supper you and the old woman would have had!"

The taunt was at least due to his oath.

"Pick up the hens, Mulholland," said I, "and let us march, we will have a laugh in the High Street."

And proceeding with my man in each hand till I came to the head of the close, I gave one of them in charge of a constable, retaining the other. Mulholland with the hens brought up the rear, and I believe we cut a good figure in our march, if I could judge from the shouts of the urchins--tickled with a kind of walking anecdote, that carried its meaning so clearly in the face of it, for it is seldom that the booty makes its appearance in these processions.

On arriving at the Office, my charges were locked up. Toppen was caught the same evening; and this part of my story of the metamorphosis being so far prelusive, I may just say that my hen-stealers were forthwith tried by the Sheriff and a jury. Each got the price of his hen even at a higher rate than the present price of a fashionable cockerel--Ireland getting nine months, Templeton six, and Toppen four. But the Climber vindicated his great reputation in a manner that entitled him to still greater fame. Whether it was that the jailer was not made aware of his abilities, or that he was placed in a cell which it was held to be impossible for any creature without claws on all the four members to get out of, I cannot say; but true it is that, to the utter amazement of every one connected with the jail, Andrew Ireland got out by the skylight, and finding his way over ridges and down descents that might have defied an Orkney eagle-hunter, descended at the north back of the Canongate, and got clear off.

Once more "done" by my agile friend, my pride was up, and I must have him by hook or by crook. I knew he was one of those enchanted beings whose love to the old town prevents them from leaving it. It has such a charm for them that they will stick to it at all hazards, even when, day by day, and night by night, they are hounded through closes and alleys like wild beasts, and have, as it were, nowhere to lay their heads. I have known them sleep on the tops of houses, and in crannies of old buildings, half-starved and half-clothed, in all weathers, summer or winter, rather than seek rest by leaving the scenes of their wild infancy. And all this they will do in the almost dead certainty that ultimately they will be seized. I was thus satisfied that Andrew was about the town; and even when, after the lapse of months, I could get no trace of him, I still retained my conviction that he was in hiding.

That conviction was destined to receive a grotesque and grim verification. I was one day at the top of Leith Wynd. A number of people were looking at the slow march of some poor wretch's funeral, the coffin borne by some ragged Irishmen, a few others going behind. As I stood looking at the solemn affair--more solemn and impressive to right minds than the plumed pageant that leaves the mansion with the inverted shield, and goes to the vault where are conserved, with the care of sacred relics, the remains of proud ancestors--a poor woman, who seemed to have been among the mourners, came up to me.

"And do you see your work, now?" quoth she, in a true Irish accent. "Do you know who is in that white coffin there, wid the bit black cloth over it?"

"No," said I.

"And you don't know the darling you murthered for stealing a hen at Paul's Work?"

"You don't mean to say," replied I, "that that's the funeral of your son, Mrs Ireland?"

"Ay, and, by my soul, I do, and murthered by you. He never lifted up his head agin, but pined and dwined like a heart-broken cratur as he was; and now he's there going as fast as the boys can carry him to his grave."

"Well," said I, "I am sorry for it."

"The devil a bit of you, you vagabond! It's all sham and blarney, and a burning shame to you, to boot."

"Peace, Janet," said I; "he's perhaps happier now than he was here stealing and drinking. There are no sky-lights in the Canongate graves, and he'll not climb out to do any more evil."

"Sky-lights!" cried Janet; "ay, but there is, and Andrew Ireland will climb out and get to heaven, while you, you varmint, will be breaking firewood in h--to roast their honours the judges who condemned my innocent darling."

"Quiet, Janet."

"Well, thin, to roast yourself; will that plaise ye?"

"Yes, yes," said I.

And fearing that the woman's passions, inflamed by her grief, might reach the height of a howl, I moved away, while she, muttering words of wrath, proceeded after the white coffin. Nor can I say I was altogether comfortable as I proceeded to the Office, for there is something in the wild moving yet miserable lives of these Arabs of the wynds when wound up by death that is really touching. Nay, it is scarcely possible to avoid the thought that they are not free agents, if they do not claim from our sympathy the character of victims. In truth I was getting muffish, if I did not soliloquise a bit about other climbers whose feet rested on the backs of such poor wretches, and who, by means not very different, get into high places, where they join the fashionable cry about philanthropy--yes, a philanthropy that helps the devil, by allowing him to brain the objects they attempt to benefit.

But a police-office soon takes the softness out of a man. I had scarcely entered when I got notice of a robbery, committed on the prior night at the workshop of Messrs Robb and Whittens, working silversmiths in Thistle Street. On repairing to the spot, I ascertained that the robber had made off with a number of silver articles, sugar-tongs, spoons, and other valuables; among the rest a number of silver screws. I particularly notice these, because they served my purpose in quite another way than that for which they were originally intended. But as to the manner of the robbery, I could get no satisfactory information beyond the fact that a suspicion attached to two chimney-sweeps, who had been passing in the morning, and had been employed to sweep the vents of the workshop; nor was my disappointment lessened by finding that the sweeps were utterly unknown to the parties connected with the shop. They could not even tell whether they came from the new town or the old. Then as to identification, even had I been angel enough to bring so unrecognisable a creature before them, who ever heard of any distinctive features in a chimney-sweep, if he has not a hump on his back or wants a nose on his face! Even I, who have seen through all manner of disguises, am often at fault with them until I almost rub noses with them--a process in which I would catch a "devilish sight" more than I wanted.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, I did not altogether despair, insomuch as I at least became pretty well satisfied that it really was the gentlemen in black who had done the deed. So wherever there was smoke to be cured and vents sweeped, I considered it my duty to call and try if I could find, not the features of my men, but some trace of the tongs and screws; for in many cases where I have had right to search, I have got my pipe lighted at a fire, the light of which has shewn me what I wanted. Yet all wouldn't do; nor was I a whit more lucky among the brokers and pawn-shops. Nay, although I _screwed_ my ingenuity to the last turn, could I trace anything of the stolen silver screws. It was no go, as the lovers of slang say; and if it had not been that I was born never to know the meaning of "Give it up," I would have renounced the pursuit of men who are beyond the landmarks of society.

Not altogether without a result, however, these vain searches. I was impressed with a curiosity about chimney-sweeps, and I never eyed one without a wish to know something about him. They had formerly interested me very little; for, to do them justice, though they have means of entering houses seldom in the power of others, and which none but fiery lovers ever think of, they have seldom qualified themselves for my attentions. They have no likings for the whitewashing processes of jails. At the same time, however, as cleanliness is next to godliness, they seldom appear in church; the grace would not pay the soap.

With this affection for the tribe still hanging about me, I was one day, a considerable period after the robbery, going along the Pleasance, in an expedition connected with the house called the Castle of Clouts, where I expected to find some remnants not left by the builder of that famous pile. I was not looking for sweeps, and yet my pipe was not out. I had been blowing some puffs, when, on turning round, I saw two of my black gentlemen standing smoking loungingly, with their backs to the wall. "Ah, some of the bright creatures of my fancy," thought I; "yea, those aerial beings who for months have been hovering over me in my dreams, yet altogether without wings." My first act was to put that same pipe out, my next to watch their movements. They were very busy talking to each other; but what interested me most was the curiosity with which they were contemplating some articles which one of them was shewing to the other,--nay, there seemed to be a silvery look about the things, which was the more apparent that they were a contrast to the hands that held them.

So straightway my pipe, which I had extinguished, required a light, and these curers of smoke could even produce that which they professed to banish. In a moment I was standing before them.

"Well, lads," said I, "can you give me a light?"

One of them recoiled a little as he caught my eye. He seemed to know me, though I am free to confess I did not know him.

"To be sure," said the other.

And striking a match upon the wall he handed me a light, whereupon I began to puff away; and as smoking is a social act, I found myself irresistibly attracted by my friend, who in my first going up appeared to be so shy.

"Do you know where the Castle of Clouts is?" said I, as I peered and peered into the dark face of him who tried to avoid my gaze.

But I was still at fault. His features were familiar to me, but the soot still came between me and my identification. At length I got my clue.

"Andrew Ireland," said I, "when did you come out of the Canongate churchyard? Was there a skylight in the top of the coffin?"

"Andrew Stewart is my name," replied the black ghost.

"And when did you turn sweep, Andrew?"

"When seven years old," said he; "but I tell you my name is Stewart, and be d----d to you."

"Well, I don't apprehend names," said I, "only bodies. Then I'm not sure if you are not a spirit, for Janet shewed me your coffin on its way to the Canongate."

"Perhaps it was Andrew Ireland's coffin you saw," said he. "It wasn't mine, anyhow."

"Oh, I see," said I, "it would be Andrew Stewart's, and I have committed a mistake. No matter; I want to know what you have in your right coat-pocket."

And at the same instant I held up my hand. My assistant was presently at my side. I saw by the fire of his eye--something like a chimney on fire--that he was bent on resistance, and instantly taking him by the neckcloth with my right hand, I was proceeding to plunge my left into his pocket, when he seized me with his wonted ferocity, and for his pains got himself laid on his back.

"Now, Andrew," said I, as he lay grinning at me so like another black gentleman when angry, "as sure as you are your mother's darling, I will take you up and throw you again if you are not peaceable, and behave yourself like a gentleman."

And getting my assistant to hold him, I took from his pocket three silver screws. It was all up with my ghost, who almost instantly became as gentle as these creatures, even the real white kind, generally are. He got up, and we proceeded to the Office. Nor did all the parts of this remarkable case end here, for, as we passed along St Mary's Wynd, whom should we meet but Janet Ireland. The moment she saw us, she appeared stupified.

"He is risen again, Janet," said I, in a kind of whisper, "they forgot to fasten the coffin with the silver screws."