Chapter XIV: Mr. Macrocodile

On finding myself a captive in this gloomy old prison, and in the custody of those grim and grey-haired Celtic _gens-d'armes_, scarcely one of whom could speak (as I have said) any language, save their native gaelic, I was animated by rage and indignation, and made such a noise, that the surly corporal of the guard, old John Dhu, a warlike remnant of the Black Watch, who once, in the Parliament Square, clove a man to the teeth with his Lochaber axe, threatened, in his best English, to gag me with a drumstick, and get an order from the captain of the Tolbooth to put me in the water-hole.

This was the lowest dungeon of that ancient prison-house; and though hourly tenanted by the refuse of society, who were gleaned up in the streets, it was a dark, wet vault, arched with stone, and so gloomy that its name alone inspired terror. This threat effectually silenced me; so gulping down my wrath, I resolved to wait till morning, when I was sure that, being innocent of all crime or error, save proving the thickness of the caput of Macfarisee, I should at least be set at liberty.

Another night of absence from, my anxious mother's home! Boylike, I could scarcely refrain from tears; but tears, like entreaties, were lost alike on Corporal Dhu.

I upbraided, in my heart, Macfarisee as the author of my recent misfortunes, by having excited my just indignation when seeking to bribe and suborn me for his own avaricious and revengeful purposes.

How I passed the night, I do not remember, whether sleeping or waking; but when St. Giles's bell rang the hour of nine, with other prisoners, who had been arrested on suspicion of having been engaged in the riot of the past day, or in the assault on the Provost's house, I was conducted by the guard, with their bayonets fixed, to the presence--not of the magistrates, but of the City Chamberlain--who, in those strange times, possessed a power and a perquisite that will scarcely be recognized or understood now.

He received a fee--some ten or fifteen shillings--for each boy whom he sent into his Majesty's sea-service, and thus every unfortunate urchin whom the guard could glean up after dark, whether innocent or guilty of crime mattered not, stood a very good chance of being sent off to see "the mysteries of the great deep," with a cat-o'-nine-tails at his back by way of an appetiser. In this way, during the early part of the last war, the chamberlain of his Majesty's ancient capital of Scotland realized a pretty round sum yearly. In Aberdeen, this system of kidnapping was carried to a still more atrocious extent by the magistrates, who sold the boys of the city as slaves to the Dutch and Spaniards.

What mattered it, though many a mother's heart was wrung--perhaps broken--by the sudden and unaccountable disappearance of a dearly-loved son; or that a fond father found the hope of his future years--his years of old age and helplessness--taken from him, if ten shillings or so were put into the pocket of the douce, pious, and church-going city chamberlain? Yet such enormities were practised in the capital of a country where once no man brooked a wrong, without appealing to the sword and dagger.

We were conducted into a large panelled room, of antique aspect, opening off one of the great stone staircases of the Royal Exchange. There I was enclosed in a species of bar, with three or four other boys, Corporal Dhu and another grim city guardsman, with his fixed bayonet and long musket, keeping watch over us; and then, to my dismay, I found myself before Mr. Macrocodile, and one or two other men of similarly ascetic aspect,--

"Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors,--
My very noble and approved good masters.

He was the bosom friend of Macfarisee; for years they had mixed their prayers and their whiskey-punch together, and wept in public over the sinfulness of this stiffnecked generation. He was one of the chief canters in the Reverend Mr. Pawkie's synagogue; and I knew that he remembered bitterly the affair of his wig, for his red ferret-eyes glared like two living coals when he saw me; and, during the discussion of one or two petty cases, in which boys were accused of breaking street-lamps, or pelting the city guard--cases which he heard and dismissed with, an air of vast magisterial importance, mixed with no small amount of the cant and slang used in the inferior departments of office, when power is wielded by a parvenu.

Just before my "case" was to be heard, as the devil would have it, Macfarisee entered the court, and gave me (though endeavouring to conceal it under his last-will-and-testament expression) a glance full of triumph and malice, to which I replied by one of hatred and defiance. The ruling elder seemed very pale; one of his eyes bore a few rainbow hues; he had a long piece of black plaster on the bridge of his nose, and another on his head, and none of these accessions tended in any way to improve his general appearance.

"Oliver Ellis!" exclaimed a clerk, referring to a paper.

I looked up. Macrocodile and Macfarisee--the Minos and Rhadamanthus, who were to loose or bind, to condemn or pardon--were ominously whispering together; and I felt that in such hands my chance of the latter was remarkably slender indeed; but pride inspired me to put a bold front on the affair.

"Of what am I accused?" I demanded.

"Read the indictment," said Mr. Macrocodile.

"Being found in the square near the Provost's house, when it was assaulted by a mob of villains, last night, refusing to state what was your business there, and maltreating and abusing the soldiers of the city guard when they attempted to take you, the said Oliver Ellis, into custody," snuffled the clerk, laying down the indictment, and resuming his pen.

"They had no right to stop or molest me; the streets are as free to me as to them."

"After dark?" growled Macrocodile, knitting his brows.

"At all hours," said I stoutly.

"You are a contumacious young dog! Do you know where you are, sir?" he thundered forth; "but we shall teach you to respect the law."

"Hush, my worthy friend," whined Mr. Macfarisee; "remember, there is a Power who chastens those whom He loves; and in His name, let us chasten this wayward one--yea, verily! yea, verily!"

"You are a couple of hypocritical rascals," said I, burning with rage, "and have no right to meddle in my affairs."

"Ay--ay, indeed! we shall soon see that," replied Macrocodile, with a malicious grin.

"He was seen among the rioters who were fired on by the troops, yesterday," said a fat city officer, officiously.

"Are ye sure of that, Archy?"

"I'll take my solemn affidavit of it!"

"Then put him in the stocks at the Tron," suggested Macfarisee. "Yea,--the stocks, where a better man sat."

"Who?" asked Macrocodile.

"The Prophet Jeremiah."

"What! in the stocks at the Tron Kirk?" exclaimed the other, with astonishment.

"No;--for shame, Macrocodile; the prophet sat in the jougs, at the high-gate of Benjamin."

"Then it is too great an honour to put this young rogue in the stocks. By George, I'll pack him off to sea!" he exclaimed, as if it was a sudden and not a common idea. "Where is Mr. Cranky, the lieutenant of the _Tartar_ tender? Clerk,--write--Oliver Ellis, sent to sea, by order of the magistrates of Edinburgh, for riotous and disorderly behaviour in the streets of the city, on the 4th day of June--may the Lord direct him to wiser and better ways--and enter my fee opposite his name. Corporal Dhu, march this loon with the others to Leith, and hand them over as volunteers to the lieutenant of the press-gang. Take the back-way, for fear of a rescue. Officer, clear the court!"

Expostulation was vain. I was seized by the collar, a bare bayonet was placed at my throat, while my hands were tied by a cord, and I was dragged out of the room. Then I saw the last of old Macrocodile, his powdered wig, and his wickedness; and the last, too, of Macfarisee, whose eyes, full of triumphant malice, glared like two bits of grey glass with a light behind them.

To avoid the streets, where considerable excitement yet prevailed, and where strong patrols of the 2nd Dragoon Guards were passing to and fro, they hurried me down a dark stair, at the back of the City Chambers, so dark, that, even now, lamps are burned there by day as well as by night; thence, by a sequestered alley, named Mary King's Close, and under the arches of the North Bridge. There, with three other boys, poor little ragamuffins, who wept bitterly, I was thrust into a hackney coach. A city guardsman, with his bayonet, mounted beside the driver. Corporal John Dhu got up behind; and thus escorted, we were driven off to Leith at a furious rate.

I was choking with mingled emotions!

Pride and just indignation struggled with grief, at the prospect of a long separation from my mother and sister, and a terror of and repugnance for the fate upon which I seemed to be hurried so rapidly.