Chapter III: Part 3

"And the more shame yours, you thaif of a thousand," she cried, "to steal the darling boy of a poor widow. Dead! isn't he worse than dead when in the hands of the biggest scoundrel that ever walked the airth?"

And what, in addition to this ingenuous turn which Janet gave to the story of the white coffin, Janet said or roared, I cannot tell, for we hurried away to avoid a gathering crowd.

I will never forget the look of the Superintendent when I told him that the man before him was the dead and buried Andrew Ireland, the stealer of the hens, the climber through the skylight of the jail, and the robber of the silversmiths' shop. What puzzled him most was, how, with the conviction on my mind that the lad was dead and buried, I could have recognised him through the soot. He looked at him again and again, nor could he say that, with the minutest investigation, he could say that he recognised the well-known thief who had cost us so much trouble.

Andrew was tried for the escape from prison as well as for the robbery; and that the judges did not think he was the short-lived person described by Janet, appears from the judgment, which condemned him to fourteen years' transportation.

The Sea Captain.

I doubt whether the good philanthropical people are even yet quite up to all the advantages of ragged schools. The salvation of society from a host of harpies is not the main chance; neither is it that the poor wretches are sold into the slavery of vice and misery before they know right from wrong. There's something more. I have a suspicion that society loses often what might become its sharpest and most intelligent members in these half-starved youngsters, whose first putting out of the hand is the beginning of a battle with the world. I'm not to try to account for the fact, but I am pretty well satisfied, from all I have seen, that the children of these poor half-starved people are something more apt than the sons of your gentlemen. You who are learned may try your hand at the paradox, and make as much of it as you do of the other riddles of human life. Here is a plea for the John Poundses and Dr Guthries, of which they could make something. Every ragged urchin they lay hold of to make him learn from books has been at a school of another kind, where he has got his energies sharpened on a different whetstone from that found within a school, and then the school does its duty in directing these energies.

Just fancy what some of our card-sharpers would have been if their cleverness had been directed towards honest and lawful undertakings. I have known some of these gentlemen so adroit at the great problem of ways and means that they might have shone as Chancellors of the Exchequer. It is not their fault that we find them out. Their great drawback is, that they begin to be cunning and adroit before they know the world. All this close cunning defeats itself. The young rogues put me often in mind of moles. They work in dark holes, but they are always coming near the surface, where they hitch up friable hillocks to let air in, and so are caught. Nay, they sometimes hitch themselves out into the mid-day sun of justice. I have at this moment two or three of these misdirected geniuses in my eye whom I have traced from early childhood--ay, that period when the Raggedier officers should have laid hold of them.

In April 1854, an honest joiner in Banff of the name of Donald M'Beath, had taken it into his head that he would do well to go to England, where his talents would be appreciated. In short, Donald had working within him the instinct of that little insect so familiar to the Highlanders, the tendency of which is to go south--probably because it knows in some inscrutable way that Englishmen have thick blood. Then he had friends in Newcastle who had gone before him, and found out that the yellow blood corpuscles of the social body flowed there more plentifully than in Banff. Were I to be more fanciful, I would say that Donald M'Beath had the second sight--for money. He loved it so well that he had stomach for "ta hail Pank of England," and would "maype return in ta grand coach and ta grey horses." Nor had this love been as yet without fruits, for he had by Highland penury saved no less a sum than seven pounds, all stowed away in a sealskin spleuchan, besides seven more which he had laid out on a capital silver watch--convinced that no Highland shentleman bearing a royal name, as he did, could pass muster in England without this commodity.

The Highlanders were never at any time in the habit of getting lighter or leaner by moving from one place to another, if they were not generally a good deal heavier at the end of their journey than at the beginning. So true to the genius of his race, he laid his plans so that, in progressing south, he would lay contributions on his "friends" all the way, in order that, if it "could pe possible," he might keep the seven pounds all entire--some extra shillings being provided for the voyage in the _Britannia_ from Leith to Newcastle. How many Highland cousins suffered during this transport of the valuable person of the King's clansman till he got to Leith, I never had any means of knowing. We cannot be far wrong, however, in supposing that he shook them all heartily by the hand; and no pedigree of the M'Farlans from Parlan downwards, was ever courted with more industry than that of the M'Beaths, if it was possible to bring within the tree any collateral branch with M'Beath blood in his veins, meal in his girnal, and a bed fit for a Highlander. Then the shake of the hand, and the "Oigh, oigh" of true happiness, were the gratitude which is paid beforehand--the only kind that Donald knew anything of; or any other body I suspect--at least if I can judge from what I have received from so many to whom I have given lodgings, meat, and free passages.

Arrived at Leith, the first thing Donald did was to get out the little bit of snuff-coloured paper which contained the names of the cousins, and where, among the rest, was that of an old woman in the Kirkgate who was a descendant of the sister of Donald's grandmother, a Macnab,--as unconscious of being related to the clan of the murderous king as any one could be, before such a flood of light was cast upon her history as Donald was well able to shed. He soon found her out; and though Janet Macnab could make nothing of the pedigree, she could count feelings of humanity; and what was more, she had a supper and a bed to save an infraction upon the said seven pounds.

Next morning, after having partaken of a Highland breakfast from poor Janet, which could only be calculated by the professions of eternal friendship uttered by a Gael, Donald went forth to see the craft which in some cheap berth was to transport him to the land of gold; and, to be sure, it was not long till he saw the vessel lying alongside of the quay. No doubt she was to be honoured in her freight. It was not every day the _Britannia_ carried a M'Beath with seven pounds in his pocket, a seven-pound watch in his fob, and a chest of tools, which was to cut his way to fortune. Then if it were just possible that the captain had ever been in Banff, or had in his veins a drop of Celtic blood--he would ascertain that by and by, he might even be a M'Beath or a M'Nab.

Much, however, as he expected from the clanship of the captain of the _Britannia_, who was not then to be seen, he had sense enough to know that that officer could not abate his passage-money. Nay, he knew that he must take out his ticket at the office on the shore, and thither he accordingly hied to make a bargain. Unfortunately these tickets are not liable to be affected by Highland prigging; but the loose shillings to which I have alluded allowed him still to retain untouched the seven pounds. Yea, that seven pounds seemed to have a charmed life, the charm being only to be broken by some such wonder as the march of some wood or forest from one part of the kingdom to the other, or by the man who should try to take it having been from the belly of a shark "untimely ript."

It wanted still some considerable time until the _Britannia_ sailed, and Donald thought that he might as well get his chest of tools and bag of clothes put on board. He accordingly hied away to Mrs M'Nab's, and having returned his thanks for her kindness, if he did not promise her a part of his fortune "when it should be made," he got the packets on his broad shoulders, and proceeded to the vessel. He was more lucky this time. A seaman, very probably the captain, was busy walking the deck.

"Hallo, tare!" cried Donald to the seaman, "you'll pe ta captain?"

"Yes, all right," replied the other; "and you'll be a passenger for Newcastle; what have you got there?"

"My tool-chest and clothes," replied Donald; "fery valuable, cost seven pounds ten shillings."

"Heave them along the gunwale there," said the seaman, "they can be stowed away afterwards; but you're too soon, we wont heave off for an hour."

"Ower sune is easy mended," replied the Gael.

"And sometimes," in a jolly way, said the other, "we have time for a dram."

"Ay, and inclination maype too," cried Donald, quite happy.

"Come away, then, our lockers are shut, so we'll have it up the way, where I know they keep the real peat-reek, and I'll pay."

And Donald, leaving his luggage, but carrying with him a notion that the captain of the _Britannia_ deserved to be one of her Majesty's Admirals of the Blue, followed his guide until they entered the house of the publican, whose name I do not at present recollect. Nor was this notion in any way modified even when they were seated at the same table with three very respectable-looking men, apparently engaged in the harmless pastime of playing at cards. Nay, the notion was evidently shared by the three strangers, who, although they had clearly never seen the captain of the _Britannia_ before, offered him, with a generosity wonderful to Donald, a share of their liquor. On his side, the generosity was equalled by his insisting that they, whom he declared he had never seen before, should take a part of his. Never was there such generous unanimity among strangers; and even Donald was included in the new-born friendship. Then the harmless play went on. There were only three cards used, two diamonds and one clubs; and the game was so simple that the Gael understood it in a moment, for it consisted in a little shuffling, and if one drew the clubs, he was the winner of the stakes. The generous captain laid down a stake of a pound; one of the players laid down another; then the cards were shuffled in so obvious a manner that a child might have seen where the clubs lay; and so to be sure the captain saw what a child might have seen, drew the slip, and pocketed the two pounds. This was repeated, until the captain pocketed six pounds; and Donald seeing fortune beckoning on, tabled one of the seven with the charmed unity. None of these men had been cut out of the belly of a shark, and so Donald M'Beath's seven was made eight.

"Play on," whispered the captain, "while I go to look after your luggage."

And so to be sure the Highlander did. He staked pound after pound, gained once in thrice, got furious, and staked on and on till the seven was nil.

Then rose the Highlander's revenge; the watch was tabled against seven pounds, and went at a sweep.

"And now, py Cot, to croon a', ta _Pritannia_ will be gone," he cried, as he rushed out in agony.

Frantic as he was, he could yet find his way to the part of the pier where he expected to see the vessel with the noble captain on board. The steamer was gone; and as he stood transfixed in despair, a man came up to him.

"Was it you who carried some luggage on board the _Britannia_ about an hour ago?"

"Ay, just me."

"Well, then, I saw a man dressed in seaman's clothes carry it away. He seemed to make for Edinburgh, likely by the Easter Road."

"And whaur is ta Easter Road?" cried the Gael, as he turned round to run in some direction, though in what he knew not.

At length, after many inquiries, he got into the said road, and hurrying along at the top of his speed, he expected every moment to see the captain. He questioned every one he met, got no trace, and began to lose hope with breath; for, long ere this, he had seen the full scope of his folly, and suspected that the captain was one of the cardsharpers. Fairly worn out,--more the consequence of the excited play of his lungs and galloping blood than the effect of his chase,--he slackened his pace when he came to the Canongate. There he was--a ruined man, not a penny left, the hopes of a fortune blasted, even his tool-chest, with which he might have cut his way anywhere, gone,--a terrible condition, no doubt, not to be even conceived properly by those who have not experienced the shock of sudden and total ruin. No sight had any interest for him, no face any beauty or ugliness, except as it carried any feature like what he recollected of his cruel and heartless companions. Nor was he free from self-impeachment, blaming his love of money as well as the blindness of his credulity. While in this humour, and making his way by inquiry to the Police-office, he met right in the face, and seemed to spring up three inches as he detected the features of one of his spoilers. In an instant, his hand clutched, with the tension of a tiger's muscle, the gasping throat of the villain. The Highland blood was boiling, and you might have seen the red glare of his eye, as if all his revenge for what he considered to be the ruin of a life had been concentrated in that one terrible glance. The sharper, strong, and with all the recklessness of a tribe of the most desperate kind, was only as a sapling in his grasp.

"My money and my watch, you tam villain!"

Words which, accompanied by the contortion of Gaelic gesticulation, only brought about him a crowd, among whom two constables made their appearance. The sharper was transferred to their hands, glad enough to be relieved of his more furious antagonist, and all the three made for the Office.

It was at this part of the strange drama I came into play. The moment I saw the Highlander enter with his man, I suspected the nature of the complaint, for I knew he was from the country, and the sharper, David Wallace, was one of my most respected _protégés_ in the card and thimblerigging line; but I required the information given me by the Highlander to make me understand all the dexterity of the trick which the pseudo-captain of the _Britannia_ had practised. The club, I knew, consisted of four, David Wallace, Richard Kyles, John Dewar, and John Sweeny. It was regularly organised, each man having attached to him his gillet of a helpmate, ready to secrete or carry the watches and other property won by their lords at this most unequal game. I have always considered those daylight sharpers, who, without instruments other than three cards or three thimbles and a pea, contrive to levy extensive contributions on society, as men worthy to have been drawn into the ranks of honest citizens, where their talents could not have failed to elevate them into wealth. Even the manipulation of these simple instruments is more wonderful than the tricks of a conjurer. Fix your eyes as you may, be suspicious even to certainty that the player is cheating you, I will defy you to detect the moment when, by the light if not elegant touch of the finger, your pea has been slipped from the right thimble to the wrong, or the right card to the wrong--yea, to the end, you could swear that no deception has been or could be practised upon you; and even when your watch is forfeited you could hardly think but that your misfortune lay on some defect in your power of penetration. And so it does. You are cheated--nay, _fairly cheated_. You can't expect from such men that they should undertake not to deceive you. If they had no art, you would ruin them in five minutes, for all you would have to do (and you insist on the unfair privilege) is to watch the thimble under which your fortune lies and snatch it. There is, therefore, no pity due to the victims of these men's deceptions, and this we can say with a thorough condemnation of the men themselves.

As soon as I understood the transaction, it was my duty to detect the right thimble, and I had no fear of deception. I sent Wallace, under charge of a constable, to the Leith Office, and told M'Beath that I would have the three others there in the course of a couple of hours. I had no doubt that Dewar, the cleverest of them, had personated the captain, and that he had rejoined his associates to share the booty. I knew their haunt, a public-house in Bristo Street, and, taking Riley with me, I went direct to the place. My luck was nothing less than wonderful. Just as I entered I met my three men coming out of a room, and holding out my arms--

"Stop, gentlemen," said I; "I have got something to say to you."

But I didn't need to say it. They understood me as well as I did them.

"Captain Dewar of the _Britannia_," said I, looking to Dewar.

"At your service," replied the rogue, with a spice of humour, at which, in the very midst of their choking wrath, they could not help leering.

Well, the old process. "Search," said I; "I want seven pounds and a watch."

And calling in my assistant, I began my search. No resistance. They were too well up to their calling.

I found the watch on Wallace. No more. The pounds had been given to the fancies.

I kept my word by having them all three at Leith within a couple of hours, safely lodged in prison. They were afterwards tried by the Leith magistrates, aided by an assessor, and sentenced to sixty days each, with sixty more if they did not give up the money and luggage. The sentence seemed judicious, and in one sense it was; but the worthy bailies did not consider that they were offering a premium on the seductive and depredating energies of the trulls, who (long after the seven pounds was spent) in order to get their birds out of the cage, set about their arts and redeemed them from bondage.

The Cobbler's Knife.

You will have perceived that among my mysteries I have never had anything to do with dreams or dream-mongers. My dreams have been all of that peep-o'-day kind when a man is "wide awake" as they say, and "up to a thing or two." Not to say that I disbelieve in dreams when they have a streak of sunlight in them, as all veritable ones have. Nor is the strange case I am about to relate free from the suspicion that the dream which preceded a terrible act, was just a daylight feeling reflected from some dark corner of the brain.

In 1835, I met one morning, as I was going to commence the duties of the day, William Wright, shoemaker in Fountain Close. He had been drinking the evening before, for his eyes were red and swollen, and he had the twittering about the tumified top of the cheeks, which shews that the inflammation is getting vent. There was some wildness in his look, and, as it afterwards appeared, something in his talk with a deeper meaning than I could comprehend.

"You have had more than enough last night, William," said I.

"Why, yes," replied he, "James and I had a bout, and I am off work for an hour or two till my hand steadies."

"Better for you and your wife if your hand was always steady," said I, as I made a movement to walk on.

"Do you believe in dreams?"

"Some," replied I, meaning the streaked ones I have alluded to. "Why do you put that question?"

"Because," replied he, "I am quite disturbed this morning by one I had last night. I thought that James Imrie stabbed me with the knife I cut my leather with."

"But James hasn't done it yet, has he?"

"No, but I awoke as angry at him as if he had; and though I have come out to get a mouthful of fresh air, I can't get quit of my wrath."

"Angry at a dream," said I, as I looked into William's scowling face. "I thought we had all quite enough to be angry at, without having recourse to dreams."

"Ay, but I can't help it," said he again; "I have been trying to shake it off, but it won't do."

"It will fly off with the whisky fever, William," said I. "James and you are old friends, and you mustn't allow a dream to break your friendship."

"Wouldn't like that either," was the reply. "He's a good-natured creature, and I like him; but I can't get quit of his visage as he stuck the knife into me. It has haunted me all the morning."

"So that you would reverse the dream, and make it true by _contraries_, as the old ladies do, when they can't get things to fit--by sticking the knife into _him_?"

"No, I wouldn't feel it in my heart to stab the best friend I have," said he; and looking wistfully into my face with his bloodshot eyes, he added, "But maybe a glass with James will wear it off."

"Yes, of pure spring water from the Fountain well there," said I.

"I never was very fond of water," said he, with a kind of grim smile, "nor is it very fond of me. One can't talk over it."

"Your old political twists, William," said I, as I recollected a curious theory he sported everywhere, and was rather mad upon.

"Oh, but I don't hate James for opposing me in that. I rather like him the better for it. We get fun out of it."

"The more reason," said I, "for you to give up your ill-natured fancy. Stab you!--why, man, James Imrie is so inoffensive a creature, that, though a flesher's runner, he wouldn't flap a fly that blows his beef, unless it were a very tempting bluebottle."

"I believe it," said he, looking a little more calm; "and I will try to forget the face. I will be better after my breakfast."

So I left William to his morning meal, suspecting that there would be a dram before it, thinking too of the strange fancy that had taken possession of him, but never dreaming that anything would come of it. It was sometime afterwards that the thread of the story again recurred to my mind, and what I have now to relate was derived from a conversation I had with Wright himself at a time when he was likely to speak the truth. I cannot answer for every word of the conversation I am to report, but I have little doubt that the substance comes as near the thing as other recitals of the same kind, recorded a considerable time after they have occurred.

It appeared that James Imrie, according to his old habit, and without knowing anything of William's dream, had left his house in Skinner's Close, and gone to his friend's, for the purpose of having a crack and a spark. William, who was at the time busy with a job of cobbling which he had promised to finish that night, received his friend with all his usual warmth, but, what was strange enough, without saying a word of his dream. James sat at a little side-table near William's stool, and some whisky was produced, according to their old fashion; for the shoemaker, like other political cobblers, liked nothing better than to spin his politics and take his dram while he was plying his awl and rosin-end. So scarcely had the first glass been swallowed, when William got upon his hobby--"The five acres and the thousand pounds" doctrine as he used to call it, and which the reader will understand as the conversation progresses. Poor James was no great adept at the sublime mystery that, like Fourier's, was to regenerate the world, and make every snob and flesher's runner as happy as the denizens of Paradise; and therefore, with his tardy thoughts and slow Scotch pronunciation, was no match for his book-read and voluble antagonist; but he was a good "butt," and that was all probably that Wright cared for--his sole ambition being to speak and to be heard speaking by any one, however unable to understand the extent of his learning.

"There now," began William, "I have been reading in the _Scotsman_ to-day that the Duke of Buccleuch has a thousand a-day. Good Lord! just think, if all the land possessed by this one man, made of clay no finer than the potter's, and maybe not so well turned, was divided into ploughgates, how many poor people would be lairds, and rendered happy."

"But if we were a' lairds," drawled James, "wha wad mak' the shoon and rin wi' the beef?"

"They would make their own shoes out of their own leather, and rear their own beef," was the triumphant reply. "Then, people say I'm for French equality. I'm not. The idiots don't understand the 'five acres and thousand pounds' doctrine. No man should have more than that quantity of land, or that sum of money. The overplus should be taken from him and divided."

"It looks weel," replied James, with a good-natured smile; "but how would it work? It puts me in mind o' Laird Gilmour's plan wi' his snuff. 'Let every prudent man ken,' said he, 'that there's twa hundred pinches in half an unce; and let him keep count as he taks every pinch, and his nose will never cheat him, and he'll never cheat his nose.' I've tried it, but I aye lost count."

"Nonsense, man! You're just like the rest, trying to crack a joke at the expense of a grand scheme for benefiting our species. You forget that under our present idiotic system a poor man cannot often get his half ounce to divide into pinches, whereas under the 'five acres and thousand punds' doctrine you could rear your own tobacco, dry it, make Taddy of it, and then snuff it, without the necessity of your arithmetic."

"And mak' our ain whisky tae," rejoined James, "and get a' drunk?"

"No," responded the theorist. "We might certainly distil our own whisky, but not get all drunk. Drunkenness is the consequence of our present system, where poverty makes misery, and misery flies to the bottle, and where bloated wealth produces epicures, who disdain whisky, but wallow in wine from morning to night."

"And yet they're no ill chields, thae grand folk, after a'," said James. "Mony a shilling I get when my basket's emptied. It comes a' round. If they get, they gie; and they're no unmindfu' o' the puir."

"I'm poor," cried the cobbler; "do they mind me? No. They grind me down to a farthing, and are ready to say, when I support the rights of labour, 'Well, labour then, and be paid; and when you can't work, you have the workhouse between you and starvation.' And yet I have a soul as noble as theirs."

"And nobler," said James, with his quiet humour; "for you would mak' a paradise o' the world, and every ane o' us an angel, without wings; but we wouldna' need wings, for wha would think o' fleeing out o' paradise?"

"Your old mockery, James," said Wright, a little touched. "The great problem of the happiness of mankind is not a subject for ridicule."

"It's yoursel' that's making the fun," rejoined his friend. "I was only using your ain words. But could we no speak about something else than the 'five acres and thousand pounds' doctrine? I never could comprehend it."

"And never can," was the tart reply. "You haven't capacity. It requires deep thought to solve the problem of human happiness, and you needn't try; but you might listen to instruction."

"I have listened lang aneugh," said the other, alike ruffled in his turn, "and it comes aye to the same knotted thrum. Ye canna mak a gude job o't by slicing aff the lords and the puir. Ye might as weel try to fancy a sheep wi' nae mair body than a king's-hood and some trollops, without head or trotters." And James laughed good-naturedly.

"Gibes again," retorted Wright, as (according to his account to me) the vision of the dream came before him, and the anger which had accompanied it flared upon his heart.

But he wrestled with it, occasionally looking at his friend, whom he really loved, yet still fancying that the face of that friend, however illuminated with the good humour probably inspired by the whisky, might or would assume the demoniac expression it carried when he dreamed that he had stabbed him to the heart. It signified little that James was smiling,--the other expression would return when the smile left. It was embodied in the muscles. It appeared as a phantasm, and the strength of a morbid imagination gave it form and expression.

"Yes, the old gibes."

"No," replied James; "I canna jibe wi' an auld freend. But to end a' this just never speak mair o' the new paradise."

"Worse and worse!" cried Wright. "You despise a subject that ought to interest all people. What are you who laugh at the idea of being made a proprietor of the rights of man--a poor wretch, who makes a shilling a-day by carrying beef, and licks the hand that gives you a penny, which by the rights of nature belongs to you; for is it not robbed from you by your masters, who have made a forceful division of property, and then you scoff at the man who would right you. I say, man, you're a born idiot."

A word this that changed James's face into as much of ill-nature as the poor fellow's naturally good and simple heart would permit. Wright at that moment looked at him. He saw, as he thought, the very countenance of the stabber, and his heart burned again, his eye flashed, and he instinctively grasped the knife in his hand. The fit lasted for a moment and went off, and the conversation was renewed at a point where I break off my narrative, to resume it when Wright gave me the parting words.

All this time I was in my own house. It would be, I think, about nine o'clock when I left to go up the High Street. I saw a number of people collected at the mouth of the Fountain Close, and heard dreadful cries of murder from the high windows of a house a little way down the entry. I was not thinking of Wright, and pushing the people aside, I was beginning to make my way down, when up the close comes running a man in his shirt-sleeves. I caught him in an instant in my arms, while the people were crying wildly, the women screaming, "Take care of the knife!"

And to be sure the knife was in his hand, _all bloody_.

"Wright!" cried I, as I wrenched the weapon from him.

"Ay, Wright," replied he; "I have murdered James," and then drawing a deep sigh he added, in choking accents, "Oh, that dream!"

Holding him tight I got him from amongst the crowd for indeed at the time I thought him mad. In leading him up I began to recollect the story he had told me before. I wished to speak, but when I turned to him I beheld such a wild distortion of features that I shrunk from increasing his agony. I heard him groaning, every groan getting into the articulation, "My friend," "My best friend," "Surely I am mad," "Take care of me, M'Levy--I'm a maniac." I didn't think so now, yet I was upon my guard; and, as he was a strong man, I got a constable to take him by the other arm.

On arriving at the Office, which we did in the midst of a dense crowd, among whom the word "murder" sped from mouth to mouth, making open lips and wide staring eyes, I led him in. The moment he entered, he flung himself on a seat, and covering his eyes with his hands sent forth gurgling sounds, as if his chest were convulsed--rolling meanwhile from side to side, striking his head on the back of the seat, and still the words, "James, James, my old friend--O God! what is this I have brought upon me?"

"Is Imrie dead?" said I, watching him narrowly.

"Dead!" he cried, with a kind of wild satire, even light as a madman's laugh; "up to the heft in his bowels."

"Was it connected with the dream, William?" I said again; "why, it was James should have stabbed you."

"The dream," he ejaculated, as if his spirit had retired back into his heart; "the dream--ay, the dream. It was that--it was that."

"How could that be?" I said again, for I was in a difficulty.

"His face, the very face he had when, in my dream, he plunged my own knife in me, has haunted me ever since. I told you that morning it was with me. I could not get rid of it, and when I saw him to-night sitting by me, I observed the same scowl. I thought he was going to seize my knife and stab me. I thought I would prevent him by being before him, and plunged the knife into his body."

"Terrible delusion," said I. "Imrie, as I told you, couldn't have hurt a fly."

"Too late, too late," he groaned. "I know it now, and, what is worst of all, I'm not mad; I feel I am not, and I must be hanged. Nothing else will satisfy my mind--I have said it. If not, I will destroy myself--lend me my knife."

"No, no," said I, "no murders here; but perhaps James is not dead--he may recover."

"Why do you say that?" he cried, as he slipt off the chair, and took me by the knees; "who knows that? has any one seen him to tell you? I would give the world and my existence to know that he has got one remnant of life in him;" and then he added, as his head fell upon his chest, "Alas! it is impossible. I took too good care of that. It would have done for one of his master's oxen."

"Imrie's not dead," said a constable, as he came forward; "they've taken him to the Infirmary."

I have seen a criminal with his whole soul in his ear as the jury took their seats, and seen his eye after the transference of his spirit from the one organ to the other, as he heard the words "Not guilty." So appeared Wright. He rose up, and again seating himself, while his eye was still fixed on the bearer of good news, he held up his hands in an attitude of prayer, and kept muttering words which I could not hear.

On leading him to the cell, where he was in solitude to be left for the night, I could not help thinking, as I have done on other occasions, that the first night is the true period of torture to such a one as Wright, with remorse in his heart. I suspect we cannot picture those agonies of the spirit except by some comparisons with our experiences of pain; but as pain changes its character with every pang, as it responds to the ever-coming and varying thoughts, our efforts are simply ineffectual. We give a shudder, and fly to some other thought for relief. To a sufferer such as Wright, we can picture only one alternative--the total renunciation of the spirit to God; and how wonderfully the constitution of the mind is suited to this, the deepest remorse finding the readiest way where we would think it might be reversed. It is impossible to rid one's-self of the conviction from this strange fact alone, that Christianity, which harmonises with this instinct, so to call it, comes from the God of the instinct. It seemed to me that Wright would, in the ensuing night, find the solace he seemed to yearn for. He had already got some hope; and becoming calm, I sat down beside him for a short time, for I had known him as a decent, hard-working fellow, incapable, except under some frenzy, of committing murder. I got from him the conversation with Imrie, which I have given partly, I doubt not, in that incorrect way, as to the set form of words, inseparable from such narratives.

"When I called James an idiot," he continued, "I saw the expression, as I thought, coming over his face, and I had the feeling I had in my dream, but I soon saw the old smile there again, and was soon reconciled.

"'Weel, maybe I am an idiot,' said James, 'for I've been aye dangling my bonnet in the presence o' customers, when maybe if I had clapt it on my head wi' a gude thud o' my hand, and said, "I'm as gude as you," and forced my way i' the warld, I wouldna, this day, be ca'd Jamie Imrie, the flesher's porter.'

"And the good soul smiled again, so we took another glass of the whisky,--a good thing when it works in a good heart, but a fearful one when it rouses the latent corruption of a bad one. I fear it wrought so with me, for although we were old friends, I got still moodier, thinking more and more of my dream, while James became more humorous.

"'But, Willie, my dear Willie,' he said, 'idiot as I may be, I doot if I would ha'e been better under your system, for I would ha'e been a daft laird o' five acres, and gi'en awa' my snuff and my whisky, and maybe my turnips, to my freends, and got in debt and been a bankrupt proprietor; so, just to be plain wi' you, and I've thought o' tellin' ye this afore nou, I would recommend you to gi'e up this new-fangled nonsense o' yours, or rather, I should say, auld-fangled, for you've been at it since ever I mind. Naebody seems to understand it, and here's a bit o' a secret,' lowering his voice, 'the folks lauch at ye when you're walking on the street, and say, "There's the political cobbler that's to cobble up society."'

"'Laugh at me!' I cried, in my roused wrath, yet I had borne ten times more from my old friend; 'laugh at me, you villain!'

"Then James's face grew dark--I watched it, it was the very face of my dream. The drink deceived me, no doubt, but I was certain of what I saw. I observed him move, as if he wanted the knife. Oh, terrible delusion! I believe the good soul had no such intention; but I was carried away by some mysterious agency. I thought I was called upon to defend myself against murder; I grasped the knife, and in an instant plunged it into his belly, and as I drew out the weapon, the blood gushed forth like a well. 'Oh, Willie!' he cried, and fell at my feet.

"I immediately roared for help, and in ran my wife, followed by neighbours. With the knife in my hand, I rushed out, and fell into your arms. Now, can you read this story, and tell me the meaning of it? I have already said I am not mad; but why was I led by a dream to stab my friend? Is there any meaning in my conduct as directed by Providence?"

"I just fear, William," said I, "from what I observed in you that morning when you told me your dream, that you had been drinking too much whisky, which, fevering and distempering your mind, produced not only the dream, but the subsequent notion that poor James was intent upon killing you. You will now see the consequence of drink. One may trace the effects of it for a time, but when, after a certain period, it begins to work changes in the tormented and worried brain, no man can calculate the results, or the crimes to which it may lead."

"I believe you are right," replied he; "and if James would just recover, he would be dearer to me than ever, and whisky no longer a deceitful friend; but, ah! I fear. And then how am I to pass this night in a dark cell, with no one near me, and the vision of that bleeding body before my eyes aye, and those words sounding in my ear, which torture and wring my heart more than a thousand oaths--those simple words, 'Oh, Willie!'"

"You must trust where trust can find a bottom," said I; "perhaps Imrie may live and recover."

"God grant!" groaned the prisoner.

And with a sorrowful heart, I turned the key in the lock.

Next day, it was ascertained that Imrie had passed a night of extreme suffering, and then died. This information I conveyed to Wright. It was needless to try modes of breaking it to him. His fear made him leap at it as one under frenzy will leap down a precipice. I had no nerve for what I have no doubt followed, and hurried out just as he had thrown himself on his hard bed, and I heard his cries ringing behind the door as I again closed it.

Wright was brought to trial on a charge of wilful murder, with a minor charge of culpable homicide. It was a stretch to choose the latter; but the men were known to be friends, and as no one witnessed the catastrophe, the milder construction was put upon an act which, after all, I suspect was simply one of temporary madness. I doubt if all the strange particulars were ever known. Wright was sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude. I have often thought of this case, but never diverged from the theory I mentioned to Wright himself. It does not affect my opinion of dreams. The two friends had been in the habit of getting into tilts, the result of their drinking. The dream was only an impression caused by some angry look forced out of the simple victim. The fever of the brain gave it consistency, and deepened it, and under the apprehension that he himself was to be stabbed, he stabbed his friend. This is the only dream-case in my book; and I'm not sorry for it, otherwise I might have glided into the supernatural, as others have done who have had more education than I, and are better able to separate the world of dreams from the stern world of realities.

The Cock and Trumpet.

There are certain duties we perform of which we are scarcely aware, and which consist in a species of strolling supervision among houses, which, though not devoted to resetting, are often yet receptacles of stolen goods, through a means of the residence there of women of the lowest stratum of vice and profligacy. Though we have no charge against the house at the time, and no suspicion that it contains stolen property, we claim the privilege of going through it on the ostensible pretence that we have in view a particular object of recovery. I have generally, I think, been fonder of these _pleasant_ strolls than my brethren, perhaps for the reason that on some occasions I have been fortunate in what may be called chance waifs. Among these there was at the period I allude to, a well-known house, known as the Cock and Trumpet, for the reason that a bantam was represented on the sign as blowing the clarion of war in the shape of a huge French horn--significant no doubt of the crowing of the Gallic cockerel. It was a favourite of mine--the more by token that I had several times brought off rather wonderful things. On one occasion I issued triumphantly with a Dunlop cheese weighing thirty pounds, on another with a dozen of Italian sausages, and on another with two live geese.

It was a feature of the portly landlady that she never knew (not she) that such things were in the house. "Some of thae rattling deevils o' hizzies had done it. The glaikit limmers, will they no be content wi' their ain game, but maun turn common thieves?" Then her surprise was just as like the real astonishment as veritable wonder itself. "And got ye that in _my_ house, Mr M'Levy? Whaur in a' the earth did it come frae? and wha brought it to the Cock and Trumpet? I wish I kent the gillet."

But the sound of _her_ trumpet was changed one morning after she had taken to herself a certain Mr Alexander Dewar to be lord of her, her establishment, and the crowing bantam. Sandy, who was himself a great thief, had thus risen in the sliding scale. It is not often that thieves rise to be the head of an establishment with a dozen of beds, though without even a fir table by way of ordinary; but so true is the title of my book, that Sandy's slide upwards was just the cause of a return downwards with accelerated velocity.

One morning I happened to be earlier on my rounds than usual, and though houses like the Cock and Trumpet do their business during night, and are therefore late openers, I found the door open.

Something more than ordinary, I said to myself. The bantam must have been roused by some cock that has seen the morning's light sooner than it reaches the deep recesses of that wynd.

And going straight in, and passing through a room of sleeping beauties reposing blissfully amidst a chorus of snorts, I came to the bed-room of the new master himself. The mistress was enjoying in bed the repose due to her midnight and morning labours, snoring as deep as a woman of her size and suction could do, and beside her, in a chair, sat Sandy himself plucking lustily at fowls. He had finished nine hens, and was busy with the last of nine ducks. No wonder that the bantam had crown so early.

"What a fine show of poultry, Sandy, man," said I. "Where got you so many hens and ducks?"

"A man has surely a right to what comes into his ain trap," replied the rogue, as unmoved as one of the dead hens. "They flew in at the window."

And he proceeded with his operation of plucking.

My voice had in the meantime awakened his helpmate.

"Whaur can the hens hae come frae?" snorted the jolly woman. "Some o' the hizzies, nae doot."

"No, mistress," said I; "they flew in at the window."

"Weel, maybe they did."

"Just in the way the Bologna sausages did," said I.

"Na, it was the jade Bess Brown did that job, but I'm an innocent woman. Was I no sleeping when ye cam in? Does a sleeping woman catch hens in her sleep as she does flees in her mooth?"

"Well," said I, turning to Sandy, "you're the man."

"The Lord's will be dune," said the wife, in a tone quite at variance with her old system of asserting her innocence, (Sandy, her "husband," being bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh). "If Sandy has disgraced the house I made him master o', ay, and a gentleman to boot, he maun just dree the dregs."

Nor was I much surprised at this turn, for I had heard that she was losing conceit of Sandy, and had been repenting that she had raised him to the rank of a gentleman as well as lord of the Cock and Trumpet. Here was a good opportunity for getting quit of him, and the shrewd Jezebel saw her advantage.

"Now, Sandy," said I again to the cool rogue, still occupied with his work, and who had now arrived at the head feathers of the last duck, which head feathers (though generally left by poultry pluckers) I observed he had carefully taken from every victim: "lay down the duck and get a pillow-slip."

"Here's ane," cried his wife on the instant, as she began to undo the strings of her head cushion, ay, even that which had been frequently pressed by the head of her lord. "There," she added, as she threw the article out of the bed.

"Put these feathers into that bag," said I; "every feather, and I'll wait till I see the last put in."

"Ye'll find that a kittle job, Mr M'Levy. A fleeing feather's no easily catched."

"Weel," said Sandy, as he threw a wrathful glance at the mistress of his affection, now about to be lost to him, a loss of fifteen stones of solid beef--"I'll do your bidding," and then relaxing into a chuckle--"but will you tell me hoo the devil ony judge or jury can tell, after a' these feathers are mixed, which belongs to a duke, and which to a hen, and which to ae duke, and no to anither, and which to ae hen, and no to its neeghbour; and then after a' that, to whom the hens or the dukes belang? Ye see there's no a head feather left."

I saw in a moment that the cunning rogue had caught me, and that I might be in for an official scrape. But I had gone too far to recede, and I had got out of as great a difficulty before. "Put in the feathers quick," said I.

"The lasses will help him," cried the landlady, still bent on favouring the apprehension of Sandy; and quickly a husky voice sounded through the house, reaching, as it was intended, the hall of the sleeping beauties--"Kate Semple, Jessie Lumsdaine, Flora Macdonald."

And straightway came rushing from their beds two or three of her "children," as she used to call them. I need not describe the condition they were in, nor their swollen, sleepless eyes, their dishevelled hair, and their wondering looks, as they found their dreams probably changed from a place where there was roasting to a place of plucking.

"Help Sandy to put thae feathers in that pillow-slip, for the deil ane o' them will remain to tak' away the credit o' my house."

And thereupon the girls began the work, sprawling on their hands and knees, and putting in handful by handful as Sandy held open the mouth of the slip. The job was a difficult one, and the scene sufficiently picturesque to occupy my attention, diverted as it sometimes was by my anticipated difficulty in identifying the corpses; nor was it without a brush that they could accomplish the entire clearance I insisted on. Even the flying feathers I urged my nymphs to secure, an operation which they undertook with agility, screaming and laughing in the midst of their work with all that wild levity and recklessness for which their tribe is remarkable.

"Here," cried Mrs Dewar, "there's some on my bed." And commencing to pick them up, "Nae man shall say that a stown feather was left in my house."

A degree of refinement in this honest woman's purity which produced a smile from me, in spite of the difficulties of a case of evidence which promised me some trouble. Nor were my fears unreasonable. Our honour is at stake in such matters, and then we require to keep in view that while little good may result from punishing so determined and hardened a rogue as Sandy Dewar, the evil consequences of an acquittal are serious. It emboldens the culprit himself, and affords a triumph to the whole fraternity.

"And now, Sandy," said I, when there was scarcely a feather to be seen, "you'll bind all the legs of the corpses together."

A command which was obeyed slowly and reluctantly.

"Throw them over your back," continued I, "and the bag will go over all."

Having got my man laden with his dead spoil, "And now we'll march to the Office," said I.