ROMANCES OF THE OLD TOWN
  OF
  EDINBURGH.

  BY
  ALEXANDER LEIGHTON,

  AUTHOR OF “MYSTERIOUS LEGENDS OF EDINBURGH,” “CURIOUS STORIED
  TRADITIONS OF SCOTTISH LIFE,” ETC.

  EDINBURGH:
  WILLIAM P. NIMMO.
  1867.




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PREFACE.


The stories in this volume owe their publication to the favour
extended to my Book of Legends. If I had any apology to make it could
only--independently of what is due for demerits which the cultivators
of “the gay science” will not fail to notice--consist in an answer to
the charge that books of this kind feed a too natural appetite for
images and stimulants which tends to voracity, and which again tends
to that attenuation of the mental constitution deserving of the name
of _marasmus_. I may be saved the necessity of such an apology by
reminding the reader that, although I plead guilty to the charge of
invention, I have generally so much of a foundation for these stories
as to entitle them to be withdrawn from the category of fiction. On
this subject the reader may be inclined to be more particular in his
inquiry than suits the possibility of an answer which may at once be
safe and satisfactory. I would prefer to repose upon the generous
example of that philanthropic showman, who leaves to those who look
through his small windows the choice of selecting his great duke out
of two personages, both worthy of the honour. The reader may believe,
or not believe, but it is not imperative that he should do either;
for even at the best--begging pardon of my fair readers for the
Latin--_fides semper est inevidens in re testificata_.

                                                                   A. L.

  YORK LODGE, TRINITY,
     _January 1867_.




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CONTENTS.


                                                            PAGE

  THE STORY OF THE TWO RED SLIPPERS,                           1

  THE STORY OF THE DEAD SEAL,                                 13

  THE STORY OF MRS HALLIDAY,                                  35

  THE STORY OF MARY BROWN,                                    60

  THE STORY OF THE MERRILLYGOES,                              88

  THE STORY OF THE SIX TOES,                                 115

  THE STORY OF MYSIE CRAIG,                                  137

  THE STORY OF PINCHED TOM,                                  160

  THE STORY OF THE IRON PRESS,                               177

  THE STORY OF THE GIRL FORGER,                              190

  THE STORY OF MARY MOCHRIE AND THE MIRACLE OF THE COD,      214

  THE STORY OF THE PELICAN,                                  238

  THE STORY OF DAVIE DEMPSTER’S GHAIST,                      255

  THE STORY OF THE GORTHLEY TWINS,                           277

  THE STORY OF THE CHALK LINE,                               299




[Illustration]




  ROMANCES
  OF THE
  OLD TOWN OF EDINBURGH.




The Story of the Two Red Slippers.


The taking down of the old house of four or five flats, called
Gowanlock’s Land, in that part of the High Street which used to be
called the Luckenbooths, has given rise to various stories connected
with the building. Out of these I have selected a very strange
legend--so strange, indeed, that, if not true, it must have been the
production, _quod est in arte summa_, of a capital inventor; nor need I
say that it is of much importance to talk of the authenticity of these
things, for the most authentic are embellished by invention, and it is
certainly the best embellished that live the longest; for all which we
have very good reasons in human nature.

Gowanlock’s Land, it would seem, merely occupied the site of an older
house, which belonged, at the time of Prince Charlie’s occupation of
the city, to an old town councillor of the name of Yellowlees. This
older house was also one of many stories, an old form in Edinburgh,
supposed to have been adopted from the French; but it had, which was
not uncommon, an entry from the street running under an arch, and
leading to the back of the premises to the lower part of the tenement,
that part occupied by the councillor. There was a lower flat, and one
above, which thus constituted an entire house; and which, moreover,
rejoiced in the privilege of having an extensive garden, running
down as far as the sheet of water called the North Loch, that secret
“domestic witness,” as the ancients used to say, of many of the dark
crimes of the old city. These gardens were the pride of the rich
burghers of the time, decorated by Dutch-clipped hollies and trim
boxwood walks; and in our special instance of Councillor Yellowlees’s
retreat, there was in addition a summer-house, or rustic bower,
standing at the bottom; that is, towards the north, and close upon
the loch. I may mention also, that in consequence of the damp, this
little bower was strewed with rushes for the very special comfort of
Miss Annie Yellowlees, the only and much-petted child of the good
councillor.

All which you must take as introductory to the important fact that the
said Miss Annie, who, as a matter of course, was “very bonnie,” as well
as passing rich to be, had been, somewhat previous to the prince’s
entry to the town, pledged to be married to no less considerable a
personage than Maister John Menelaws, a son of him of the very same
name who dealt in pelts in a shop of the Canongate, and a student of
medicine in the Edinburgh University; but as the councillor had in
his secret soul hankerings after the prince, and the said student,
John, was a red-hot royalist, the marriage was suspended, all to the
inexpressible grief of our “bonnie Annie,” who would not have given
her John for all the Charlies and Geordies to be found from Berwick to
Lerwick. On the other hand--while Annie was depressed, and forced to
seek relief in solitary musings in her bower by the loch--it is just as
true that “it is an ill wind that blaws naebody gude;” nay, the truth
of the saying was verified in Richard Templeton, a fellow-student of
Menelaws, and a rival, too, in the affections of Annie; who, being a
Charlieite as well as an Annieite, rejoiced that his companion was in
the meantime foiled and disappointed.

Meanwhile, and, I may say, while the domestic affairs of the
councillor’s house were still in this unfortunate position, the
prince’s bubble burst in the way which history tells us of, and
thereupon out came proscriptions of terrible import, and, as fate would
have it, young Templeton’s name was in the bloody register; the more by
reason that he had been as noisy as Edinburgh students generally are in
the proclamation of his partisanship. He must fly or secrete himself,
or perhaps lose a head in which there was concealed a considerable
amount of Scotch cunning. He at once thought of the councillor’s house,
with that secluded back garden and summer-house, all so convenient for
secrecy, and the envied Annie there, too, whom he might by soft wooings
detach from the hated Menelaws, and make his own through the medium
of the pity that is akin to love. And so, to be sure, he straightway,
under the shade of night, repaired to the house of the councillor,
who, being a tender-hearted man, could not see a sympathiser with the
glorious cause in danger of losing his head. Templeton was received, a
report set abroad that he had gone to France, and all proper measures
were taken within the house to prevent any domestic from letting out
the secret.

In this scheme Annie, we need hardly say, was a favouring party; not
that she had any love for the young man, for her heart was still
true to Menelaws, (who, however, for safety’s sake, was now excluded
from the house,) but that, with a filial obedience to a beloved
father, she felt, with a woman’s heart, sympathy for one who was in
distress, and a martyr to the cause which her father loved. Need we
wonder at an issue which may already be looming on the vision of those
who know anything of human nature? The two young folks were thrown
together. They were seldom out of each other’s company. Suffering is
love’s opportunity, and Templeton had to plead for him not only his
misfortune, but a tongue rendered subtle and winning by love’s action
in the heart. As the days passed, Annie saw some new qualities in the
martyr-prisoner which she had not seen before; nay, the pretty little
domestic attentions had the usual reflex effect upon the heart which
administered them, and all that the recurring image of Menelaws could
do to fight against these rising predilections was so far unavailing,
that that very image waxed dimmer and dimmer, while the present
object was always working through the magic of sensation. Yes, Annie
Yellowlees grew day by day fonder of her _protégé_, until at length
she got, as the saying goes, “over head and ears.” Nay, was she not,
in the long nights, busy working a pair of red slippers for the object
of her new affections, and were not these so very suitable to one who,
like Hercules, was reduced almost to the distaff, and who, unlike that
woman-tamed hero, did not need them to be applied anywhere but to the
feet?

In the midst of all this secluded domesticity, there was all that
comfort which is said to come from stolen waters. Then, was there not
the prospect of the proscription being taken off, and the two would
be made happy? Even in the meantime they made small escapades into
free space. When the moon was just so far up as not to be a tell-tale,
Templeton would, either with or without Annie, step out into the garden
with these very red slippers on his feet. That bower by the loch,
too, was favourable to the fondlings of a secret love; nor was it
sometimes less to the prisoner a refuge from the eerieness which comes
of _ennui_--if it is not the same thing--under the pressure of which
strange feeling he would creep out at times when Annie could not be
with him; nay, sometimes when the family had gone to bed.

And now we come to a very wonderful turn in our strange story. One
morning Templeton did not make his appearance in the breakfast-parlour,
but of course he would when he got up and got his red slippers on.
Yet he was so punctual, and Annie, who knew that her father had to
go to the council-chamber, would see what was the cause of the young
man’s delay. She went to his bed-room door. It was open, but where was
Templeton? He was not there. He could not be out in the city; he could
not be even in the garden with the full light of a bright morning sun
shining on it. He was not in the house; he was not in the garden, as
they could see from the windows. He was nowhere to be found, and what
added to the wonder, he had taken with him his red slippers, wherever
he had gone. The inmates were in wonderment and consternation, and,
conduplicated evil! they could make no inquiry for one who lay under
the ban of a bloody proscription.

But wonders, as we all know, generally ensconce themselves in some snug
theory, and die by a kind of pleasant euthanasia; and so it was with
this wonder of ours. The councillor came, as the days passed, to the
conclusion that Templeton, wearied out by his long confinement, had
become desperate, and had gone abroad. As good a theory as could be
got, seeing that he had not trusted himself in going near his friends;
and Annie, whose grief was sharp and poignant, came also to settle
down with a belief which still promised her her lover, though perhaps
at a long date. But, somehow or another, Annie could not explain, why,
even with all the fondness he had to the work of her hands, he should
have elected to expose himself to damp feet by making the love-token
slippers do the duty of the pair of good shoes he had left in the
bed-room.

Even this latter wonder wore away, and months and months passed on
the revolving wheel which casts months, not less than moments, into
that gulf we call eternity. The rigour of the Government prosecutions
was relaxed, and timid sympathisers began to show their heads out of
doors, but Richard Templeton never returned to claim either immunity
or the woman of his affections. Nor within all this time did John
Menelaws enter the house of the councillor; so that Annie’s days were
renounced to sadness and her nights to reveries. But at last comes the
eventful “one day” of the greatest of all storytellers, Time, whereon
happen his startling discoveries. Verily one day Annie had wandered
disconsolately into the garden, and seated herself on the wooden form
in the summer-house, where in the moonlight she had often nestled
in the arms of her proscribed lover, who was now gone, it might be,
for ever. Objective thought cast her into a reverie, and the reverie
brought up again the images of these objects, till her heart beat
with an affection renewed through a dream. At length she started up,
and wishing to hurry from a place which seemed filled with images at
once lovable and terrible, she felt her foot caught by an impediment
whereby she stumbled. On looking down she observed some object of a
reddish-brown colour, and becoming alarmed lest it might be one of the
toads with which the place was sometimes invaded, she started back. Yet
curiosity forced her to a closer inspection. She applied her hand to
the object, and brought away one of those very slippers which she had
made for Templeton. All very strange; but what may be conceived to have
been her feelings when she saw, sticking up from beneath the rushes,
the white skeleton of a foot which had filled that very slipper! A
terrible suspicion shot through her mind. She flew to her father, and,
hurrying him to the spot, pointed out to him the grim object, and
showed him the slipper which had covered it. Mr Yellowlees was a shrewd
man, and soon saw that, the foot being there, the rest of the body was
not far away. He saw, too, that his safety might be compromised either
as having been concerned in a murder or the harbourage of a rebel; and
so, making caution the better part of his policy, he repaired to a
sympathiser, and, having told him the story, claimed his assistance.
Nor was this refused. That same night, by the light of a lamp, they
exhumed the body of Templeton, much reduced, but enveloped with his
clothes; only they observed that the other red slipper was wanting.
On examining the body, they could trace the evidence of a sword-stab
through the heart. All this they kept to themselves, and that same
night they contrived to get the sexton of the Canongate to inter the
body as that of a rebel who had been killed and left where it was found.

This wonder also passed away, and, as time sped, old things began to
get again into their natural order. Menelaws began to come again about
the house, and, as an old love, when the impediments are removed, is
soon rekindled again, he and Annie became even all that which they
had once been to each other. The old vows were repeated without the
slightest reference being made by either party to the cause which had
interfered to prevent them from having been fulfilled. It was not
for Annie to proffer a reason, and it did not seem to be the wish of
Menelaws to ask one. In a short time afterwards they were married.

The new-married couple, apparently happy in the enjoyment of an
affection which had continued so long, and had survived the crossing of
a new love, at least on one side, removed to a separate house farther
up in the Lawnmarket. Menelaws had previously graduated as a doctor,
and he commenced to practise as such, not without an amount of success.
Meanwhile, the councillor died, leaving Annie a considerable fortune.
In the course of somewhere about ten years they had five children. They
at length resolved on occupying the old house with the garden, for
Annie’s reluctance became weakened by time. It was on the occasion of
the flitting that Annie had to rummage an old trunk which Menelaws,
long after the marriage, had brought from the house of his father, the
dealer in pelts. There, at the bottom, covered over by a piece of brown
paper, she found--what? The very slipper which matched the one she
still secretly retained in her possession. _Verbum sapienti._ You may
now see where the strange land lies; nor was Annie blind. She concluded
in an instant, and with a horror that thrilled through her whole body,
that Menelaws had murdered his rival. She had lain for ten years in
the arms of a murderer. She had borne to him five children. Nay, she
loved him with all the force of an ardent temperament. The thought was
terrible, and she recoiled from the very possibility of living with him
a moment longer. She took the fatal memorial and secreted it along with
its neighbour, and having a friend at a little distance from Edinburgh,
she hurried thither, taking with her her children. Her father had left
in her own power a sufficiency for her support, and she afterwards
returned to town. All the requests of her husband for an explanation
she resisted, and indeed they were not long persisted in, for Menelaws
no doubt gauged the reason of her obduracy--a conclusion the more
likely that he subsequently left Scotland. I have reason to believe
that some of the existing Menelaws are descended from this strange
union.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of the Dead Seal.


Among Lord Kames’s session papers there are two informations or written
pleadings upon the competency of an action of damages. The law point
was strange enough, but the facts set forth in explanation were much
more so, amounting indeed to a story so unprecedented, that I cannot
help being surprised how they have escaped the curiosity of those who
love “to chronicle the strong beer” of human life and action. Mr John
Dalrymple, merchant, had passed his honeymoon with his wife (whose
maiden name was Jean Bisset) in his house in Warrender’s Close, and was
about to proceed next morning to Glasgow, to execute some commission
business. They had a cheerful supper; they were both young, both
healthy, and both hopeful, and surely if under these conditions they
could not extract some sweets out of the orange of life, they might
have little chance afterwards, when the pulp would diminish to the
bitter skin which is inevitable. But the truth is, they had both very
good powers of suction, and will enough to use them; and if it were not
that death and life play upon the same string, one might have said that
the new-married couple stood no apparent risk of any fatal interruption
to their happiness.

It was accordingly in very good spirits that Mr Dalrymple set forth in
the morning on his journey. We might perhaps say, that the inspiration
of her love lent force to his mercantile enterprise, for somehow it
would seem that all the actions of man beyond the purely selfish play
round the great passion, just as the gaudy petals of the flowers are
a kind of acted marriage-song round what is going on in the core of
the plants; and so having arrived in Glasgow, he would be thinking
about his Jean, to whom, when he got home again, he would recount the
wonderful triumphs he had achieved over his competing worshippers in
the Temple of Mammon. He was to be eight days away, and no doubt,
according to a moderate calculation, they would appear as so many
months, were it not that his business engagements would keep these
days to their normal length. He was to write her every day, but as
he did not know at what inn he might put up, she was not to write
to him until she knew where to address him. On the day after his
arrival he accordingly sent her a very loving letter, containing, we
presume, as many of those kisses _à la distance_ as is usual in such
cases, and which in our day would make some noise in the post-office
receiving-box, if they were endowed with sound. Having performed this
loving duty, he continued his exertions re-inspired with the hope of
receiving an answer on the morning of the day following. Then--as happy
people, like the other animals, are playful--he amused himself at
intervals, by conjecturing as to what kind of a letter he would get,
how endearingly expressed it would be, how many “dears” there would
be in it, what warmth of feeling the words would convey, and how many
sighs had already been wasted for his return. We might smile at such
frivolities if we were not called to remember that the most of our
pleasures, if looked at through the spectacle-glass of Reason, would
appear to be ridiculous.

The morning came; and, according to the statement of the waiter, the
letter would arrive about breakfast time. He would thus have two
or three pleasures rolled up in the same hour; he would sip coffee
and nectar at the same time; his ham and egg would be sweetened by
ambrosia; the pleasures of sense would be heightened by those of the
fancy. All which were promises made by himself, and to himself, while
he was dressing, and we cannot be sure that he did not make himself
more sprightly, that he had to appear before the letter of his dear
Jean. Did not Rousseau blush in presence of the great lady’s dog?
Do what we may, we cannot get quit of the moral influence exercised
over us by even inanimate things having the power of suggesting
associations. But the breakfast was set, all the eatables and
drinkables were on the table, and the last thing served by the waiter
was the communication that the postman had passed and had left no
letter.

The circumstance was rendered more than awkward by his prior hopes and
anticipations, and it had the effect, moreover, which it surely ought
not to have had upon a sensible man, of taking away his appetite. That
it was strange there could be no doubt, for where is the loving wife
who at the end of the honeymoon would allow a post to pass without
replying to a loving husband’s letter?--but then he contrived to
make it more strange by his efforts to satisfy himself that it was
not strange at all. His reasons did not satisfy him; the humming of
a Scotch air carried no conviction and produced no appetite; and
the result was increased anxiety, evidenced by the hanging head and
heavy eye. Again the main argument was that his or her letter had
miscarried,--how _could_ there be any other mode of accounting for
it?--and then he hummed the air again--the breakfast standing all the
time. All to be again counter-argued by the fact that during all the
period he had corresponded with Glasgow, there had been no miscarriage
of a letter, either to or from him. This was the doctrine of chances
in the form of a stern logic, and the effect was apparent in another
relapse into fear and anxiety. But Mr Dalrymple, though made a moral
coward by the intensity of his affection, was withal a sensible man--a
fact which he gave a good proof of, by placing more faith in brandy
than logic, for having called for a little of that cordial, he put
a glassful into his coffee, and thereupon felt, almost as soon as
the liquor had got into his stomach, that there was really a great
deal less to fear than he had thought, if the whole affair was not
a mere bugbear; and what was not less remarkable, if not fortunate,
the brandy, by dismissing his fears, brought back his appetite, and
although he required a little longer time, he contrived to make nearly
as good a breakfast as if he had been favoured with the ambrosial
accompaniment which he had so hopefully promised himself.

Nor was this a small matter, for the meal served as ballast to enable
him to encounter something very different from the slight adverse wind
he had experienced for the last hour. He was still sitting at the
table, rather pleased that he had triumphed over morbid fears, and
laying out his scheme for the day, when the words, coming from behind,
“A letter, sir,” struck his ear as if by a slap. His hand nervously
seized the proffered gift, his eyes “flew” as it were to meet the
superscription. He did not know the handwriting. It was directed to the
care of Messrs Robert Fleming & Co., one of the houses with which he
had been doing business. So far he was relieved, even when disappointed
by the absence of his wife’s hand on the address. He turned it with
the view to break it open, and then stopped and trembled as his eye
fixed itself on a large black seal, exhibiting the death’s head and
cross-bones of a funeral letter. Even this he soon got over, under the
supposition that it was an invitation to some acquaintance’s funeral
sent through to him, likely, by the recommendation of his wife before
she had received his true address. At length he broke it open, and read
the following words:--

  “DEAR SIR,--I am sorry to be under the necessity of informing you
  that your wife died this afternoon, between three and four, from
  the bursting of a blood-vessel in the lungs. You will see the
  propriety of starting for home as soon as you receive this melancholy
  intelligence.--Yours,

                                                   “A. MORGAN, F.R.C.S.”

No sooner had he read this terrible communication than he was rendered
as rigid as a statue. The only movement that could have been observed
in him was in the fingers of the right hand, as it crumpled up the
paper by the spasm of the muscles acting involuntarily. His eye was
fixed without an object to claim it, and his teeth were clenched as if
he had been seized by lockjaw. Conditions which we use strong words to
describe, as we toil in vain after an expression which must always be
inadequate, even though the words are furnished by the unhappy victim
himself. We try a climax by using such expressions as “palsied brain”
and so forth, all the while forgetting that we are essaying to convey
a condition of inward feeling by external signs, the thing and the
sign being in different categories. As he still sat under the stunning
effect of the letter, the waiter entered to clear the table, but when
he saw the letter in the clenched hand he retreated from the scene of
a private grief, which a foreign interference would only have tended
to irritate; but probably the noise of the closing door helped the
reaction which comes sooner or later to all victims of moral assaults,
and by and by he began to think--to see the whole details of the
tragedy--to be conscious of the full extent of his misery. It was not
yet time for the beginning of relief, for these conditions are subject
to the law of recurrence. Like the attacks of an ague they exhaust
themselves by repetition, and Nature’s way is at best but a cruel
process of wearing out the sensibility of the palpitating nerve.

How long these oscillations lasted before the unhappy victim was able
to leave his seat, we cannot tell. But as all thought is motion, so is
all motion action. He could not retreat from the inevitable destiny.
He must move on in the maze of the puppets. He must face the dead body
of his wife. He must bury her, if he should never be able to lay the
haunting spirit of memory. All business must be suspended, to leave the
soul to the energies necessary for encountering the ordeal. A certain
hardness, which belongs to the last feelings of despair, enabled him,
even with something like deliberation, to go through the preparations
of departure; but in this he exhibited merely the regularity of a
machine, which obeys the imposed power behind. At eleven o’clock he was
seated in the coach, as one placed there to be moved on and on, mile
by mile, to see the dead body of a wife, whose smiling face, as he had
seen it last, was still busy with his fancy, and whose voice, as he had
heard her sing at the parting supper, still rang in his ears.

Nor were his feelings ameliorated by the journey, to remove the
tediousness of which, at that slow time, the passengers were obliged
to talk even against sheer Scotch taciturnity. He sat and heard,
whether he would or not, the account of one who was going to bring home
a wife; of another who had been away for ten years, and who was to be
met at the coach-door by one who was dying to clasp him in her arms.
All which were to him as sounds in another world wide apart from that
one occupied by him, where he was, as he could not but think, the one
solitary inhabitant, with one dead companion by his side. By and by, as
the conversation flagged, he fell into that species of monomania where
the brooding spirit, doomed to bear a shock, conjures up and holds
before its view the principal feature of a tragedy. That feature was
the image of his Jean’s face. It was paler than the palest of corpses,
to suit the condition of the disease of which she had died. The lips
were tinged with the blood of the fatal hemorrhage. The eyes were
blank and staring, as if filled with the surprise and terror of the
sudden attack. Over all, the fixedness of the muscles,--the contrast of
death to the versatile movements, which were obedient to the laugh of
pleasure when he last drew indescribable joy from the changes of her
humour. No effort could relieve him from that one haunting image. The
conversation of the party seemed to render it more steadfast--more
bright--more harrowing. Nor when he tried to realise his feelings, in
the personal encounter of facing the reality, could he find in himself
any promise of a power to enable him to bear up against the terrible
sight. It seemed to him, as the coach moved slowly on, as if he were
being dragged towards a scaffold draped in black, where he was to
suffer death.

When the coach at length stopped in the High Street, he was roused as
from a dream, but the consciousness was even worse than the monomaniac
condition in which he had been for hours. It was twelve at night; the
bell of St Giles’s sounded solemnly in the stillness of the sleeping
city. Every one of the passengers hurried off each to his home or inn,
all glad of the release. To him it was no release; he would have ridden
on and on, for days and weeks, if for nothing else than to prolong the
interval, at the end of which the ordeal he feared so much awaited
him. Whither now? He stood in the middle of the dark and silent street
with his portmanteau in his hand, for he was really uncertain whether
to proceed to his sister’s house in Galloway’s Close, and get her to
go with him to his own house, as a kind of medium, to break the effect
of the vision--or to proceed homewards alone. He turned his steps
towards Galloway’s Close, and soon found that the family had gone to
bed; at least, all was dark yet. Might not his sister be at his house
“sitting up” with the corpse? It was not unlikely, and so he turned and
proceeded towards home, his steps being forced, as if his will had no
part in his ambulation. Arriving at Warrender’s Close, he stood at the
foot of his own stair, and, looking up to the windows, he found here,
too, all dark; nor were there any neighbours astir who might address
to him some human speech, if not sympathy. The silence was as complete
as the darkness, and both seemed to derive the dull charm of their
power from the chamber of death. At length he forced himself, step by
step, up the stairs, every moment pausing, as well from the exhaustion
produced by his moral cowardice, as to listen for a stray sound of the
human voice. He had now got to the landing, and, entering the dark
passage leading to the door of his own flat, he groped his way along
by applying his unoccupied hand to the wall. He now felt his nerves
fast giving way, his heart beat audibly, his limbs shook, and though he
tried to correct this fear, he felt he had no power, though naturally a
man of great physical courage.

He must persevere, and a step or two more brought him to the door,
which he found partially open,--a circumstance he thought strange,
but could account for by supposing that there were neighbours
inside--gossips who meet round death-beds to utter wise saws with dry
eyes. Yet, though he listened, he heard no sounds. He now pushed open
the door, and so quietly, as if he feared that a grating hinge would
break the silence. The lobby was still darker than outside, and his
first step was towards the kitchen, the door of which he pushed back.
There was no one there,--a cruse which hung upon the wall was giving
forth the smallest glimmer of a dying light. There was a red peat in
the grate, smouldering into white ashes. Turning to the servant’s bed,
he found it unoccupied, with the clothes neatly folded down, no doubt
by Peggy’s careful hands, and no doubt, too, Peggy had solemn work to
do “ben the house.” He next crossed the lobby, partly by groping, and
reached a parlour, the door of which he opened gently. Dark too, and no
one within. The same process was gone through with the dining-room, and
with the same negative result. The last door was that of the bed-room,
where he was to encounter what he feared. It was partially open. He
placed his ear to the chink and listened, but he heard nothing. There
was no living voice there, and death speaks none. He pushed the door
open, and looked fearfully in. A small rushlight on the side-table
opposite the bed threw some flickering beams around the room, bringing
out indistinctly the white curtains of the bed. He approached a little,
and could discover vaguely the form of his wife lying there. Would he
take up the rushlight, and, with the necessary courage, go forward and
examine the features? He had arrived at the spot, and at the moment,
portrayed prospectively in his waking dream during his journey, and
a few steps, with the rushlight in his hand, would realise the image
he had brooded over so long. He struggled with himself, but without
avail. Any little courage he had been for the last few minutes trying
to summon up utterly gave way. There rushed into his mind vague fancies
and fears,--creatures of the darkness and the death-like stillness
around him, which he could neither analyse nor stay. He even thought he
heard some sound from the bed where the corpse lay,--the consequence of
all which was total loss of self-possession, approaching to something
like a panic, and the effect of this, again, was a retreat. He sought
the door, groped his way again through the inside lobby, got to the
outer door, along the outer passage, down the stair to the street.

Nor when he got there did he pull up and begin to think of the extreme
pusillanimity, if not folly, of his conduct. Even if he had tried,
he could only have wound up his self-crimination by the ordinary
excuse--that he could not help it. The house, with its stretched
corpse, deserted rooms, its darkness and silence, was frightful to
him. He could not return until he found some one to accompany him; and
he satisfied himself of the reasonableness of this condition by the
fact that the servant herself had fled in fear from the dismal scene.
He began to move, though almost involuntarily, down the Canongate,
his step quick and hurried, after the manner of those who are pursued
by some danger, the precise nature of which they do not stop to
examine. He even found a slight relief in the muscular exertion, and
thus hurrying on, he reached the Duke’s Walk, and came to the heap of
stones called Muschet’s Cairn, from Nichol Muschet of Boghall, who
there murdered his wife. With no object but movement to dispel his
misery, it was indifferent to him whither he should go; and hurrying to
Arthur’s Seat, he began to climb the hill, regardless of the dangerous
characters often encountered there at night, any one of whom he had
courage enough to have throttled at the moment he was flying from what
was little more than a mere phantom.

Meanwhile the moon had risen, and was illuminating at intervals the
north-east side of the hill, leaving all in comparative darkness again
as she got behind the thick clouds which hung heavily in the sky; but
the light was of no value to one who was moved only by the impulse of
a distraction. Yet, as he stood for a moment, and looked back upon the
city, with that Warrender’s Close in the heart of it, and that house
in the close, and that room with the rushlight within the house, and
that bed in the room, and that figure so still and silent in the bed,
he became conscious of a circumstance which had escaped him. He found
that in his wild wandering, apparently without any other aim than
to allay unbearable feelings by exertion, he had been unconsciously
following, step by step, the very track which he and his now lost
Jean had taken in a walk of the afternoon of the Sunday preceding his
departure for Glasgow. The thought thus coming as a discovery was in
itself a mystery, and he felt it to be a kind of duty--though with what
sanction of a higher power he knew not--to continue that same track of
the Sunday walk which had been consecrated by the sweet intercourse of
two loving hearts. In execution of which purpose he kept moving towards
the east shoulder of the hill, and such hold had this religious fancy
taken of him, that he looked about for places in the track where some
part of their conversation had occurred, which, from some peculiarity
in it, had remained upon his memory. Nay, so weak did he become in his
devotion, that he threw himself down on the cold grass at spots where
Jean had required a rest, and had leant her head upon his shoulder,
and had been repaid by some note of endearment. But in these reclining
postures, which assumed the form of a species of worship, he remained
only till the terrible thought of his privation again rose uppermost in
his mind, forcing him to start to his feet by a sudden spring, and to
go on again, and brush through the whins that grew on the hill-side, as
if he courted their obstruction as a relief.

It is said that our ideas produce time, and our feelings devour it;
and this is true at least where the feelings are of apprehension and
fear of some inevitable event to occur in the future. He had still the
ordeal to pass through. The sun would rise, in the light of which he
would be forced to look on the dead face, and in place of considering
the time occupied by these wanderings to and fro long and weary, the
moments, minutes, hours, passed with such rapidity that the moon had
gone far on in her journey, and the gray streaks of dawn were opening
up a view to the east, before he could realise the passage of the time
which had been, as it were, swallowed up by his desire to postpone
what, by the laws of nature and society, he was bound to endure. How
many times he had gone round the hill and up to the top, and down to
Duddingstone, and along by the village road, and in through the bog,
to begin his rounds again, he could not have told. But at length the
sun glared threateningly in his face. Time defied him, and at length
he saw the smoke of the chimneys begin to rise from the city. The red
peat he had seen in the grate of his own kitchen would at least yield
none. The household gods had deserted his hearth. Death and silence now
reigned there. He heard eight o’clock sound from St Giles’s. The people
were beginning to move in all directions--all in search of pleasure,
the ultimate end of all man’s exertions--and he could no longer find a
refuge in darkness or distance; so he began to move in the direction
of the town with the weariness and lassitude of exhaustion rendering
his legs rigid and his feet heavy, in addition to the hopelessness of
a stricken heart. When he got to the Watergate, he began to see faces
of people whom he knew, and who knew him; but he felt no desire to
speak, and they doubtless from delicacy passed, without showing any
desire to stop him. At length he arrived at the head of Warrender’s
Close, and now he felt as if he were more submissive to the necessity
of what seemed to be fate, moving his limbs with more will--even with
something like a wish on his mind to put an end to a long agony. Down
and down step by step, the drooping head responsive in its nods to
the movement of his body; up the stair step after step deliberately,
resolutely; along the outer passage; now opposite his own door. That
door was now closed, giving indication that the servant, or some friend
or neighbour, had been in the house since he left. He tapped gently.
The door was opened almost upon the instant, and Mr John Dalrymple
was immediately encompassed by the arms of a woman screaming in the
exultation of immoderate joy.

“John, dear John, how delighted I am to see you,--for oh, we have been
in such dreadful fear about you since Peggy found your portmanteau in
the lobby; but, thank God, you are come at last, and just in time for a
fine warm breakfast.”

The ejaculation, or rather screaming of which words was very easy,
because very natural, to Mrs Jean Dalrymple, in the happy circumstances
in which she found herself after so much apprehension produced by the
mystery connected with the portmanteau, but as for Mr John Dalrymple
speaking even to the extent of a single syllable was out of the
question, unless some angel other than she of the house had touched his
lips with the fire of inspiration, in place of his receiving the kisses
of his wife. And this was so far well, for he certainly would have
made a bungle of any attempt at the moment to express his feelings,
besides laying himself open to a heavier charge of folly than that
which already stood at the wrong side of his account of wisdom, or
even common sense. So quietly taking off his hat he led the way into
the breakfast-parlour, where he saw the breakfast things all neatly
laid, beside a glowing fire, before which lay his brindled cat, not the
least happy of the three; whilst Peggy, who had some forgotten thing to
put on the table, had a pleasant smile on her face, just modified in
a slight degree with a little apprehension which probably neither the
master nor mistress could comprehend.

“I will tell you, Jeannie, all about the portmanteau, and perhaps
something more, when we sit down to breakfast,” words which in the
meantime were satisfactory to Mrs Jean; and the event they conditioned
for soon arrived, for the wife was all curiosity and despatch, and
Peggy all duty and attention.

The story was very soon told, nor did Mrs Jean interrupt the narrative
by a single word as she sat with staring eyes and open mouth listening
to the strange tale.

“There is the letter with the dead seal,” said he, as he handed it over
to her.

Mrs Jean read it, and then began to examine it as if she was
scrutinising the form of the written words.

“That is the handwriting of Bob Balfour, my old admirer,” said she, at
length, with animation. “I know his hand as well as I know yours, and
he has done this in revenge for your having taken me from him. I will
show you proof.”

And going to a cabinet she took therefrom some letters, which she
handed to her husband. These proved two things: first, that the letter
with the black seal, purporting to be signed by Surgeon Morgan, was
in the handwriting of Balfour, though considerably disguised; and
secondly, that he had been an ardent lover of Jean, and, perhaps, on
that account an enemy to the man who had been fortunate enough to
secure her affections and her hand.

“All clear enough; but I shall have my revenge, too!” cried the
husband. “In the meantime there are some things to be explained. Why
did you not write?”

“I wrote to you last night,” said Jean. “You had posted your letter too
late.”

“And why was not Peggy in the house last night at twelve, when I came
home?”

“Peggy must answer that herself,” answered Mrs Jean, smiling, and
looking from her husband to Peggy, and from Peggy to her husband, as
she spoke; “but I think I know what her answer will be.”

And that answer was indeed very simple, amounting to no more than the
very natural fact that Peggy, after her mistress had retired to rest,
had gone up the common stair to Widow Henderson’s, whose son Jock
was courting Peggy at the time with all commendable assiduity, and
considerable chance of success.

But our story, though thus so satisfactorily explained, is not yet
done. Nay, as we have said, its termination was in the court, where
Mr Dalrymple sued Balfour for damages and _solatium_ for his cowardly
and cruel act. Nor was this action itself an ordinary matter, for it
interested the lawyers of the day, not by the romantic facts which
led to it, but the legal principles which flowed out of it. Balfour’s
counsel objected to the relevancy, that is, denied there was in a
lie or practical joke any cause of action. This defence gave rise to
the informations we have mentioned, for the point raised was new and
difficult. It was argued by Balfour that lies in the form of hoaxes
are told every day, some good and some bad. Men know this, and ought
to be upon their guard, which can be their only security,--for if
such lies were actionable, one-half of society would be at law with
the other. And as for any injury inflicted on Mr Dalrymple, it was
doubtful whether the pleasure he experienced that morning when enclosed
in the arms of his wife, did not more than compensate for his prior
sufferings. On the other hand the pursuer argued, that by the law of
Scotland there is no wrong without a legal remedy, and that having
suffered by the cruel deceit both in his feelings and in his purse,
(for he left his business unfinished,) he was entitled to recover. We
have been unable to find the judgment.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of Mrs Halliday.


There are little bits of romance spread here and there in the routine
of ordinary life, but for which we should be like the fairy Aline,
somewhat weary of always the same flowers blooming, and the same
birds singing, and the same play of human motives and passions. They
are something of the nature of episodes which, as in the case of
epic poems, are often the most touching and beautiful in the whole
work. Yet the beauty is seldom felt by the actors themselves, who are
frequently unfortunate; and so it is that they suffer that we may enjoy
the pathos of their suffering, after it has gone through the hands
of art. We are led to say this as a kind of prelude to one of those
episodical dramas which occurred some eighty years ago, and for twenty
of them formed a household story, as well from the singularity of the
principal circumstances as from the devotion of the personages. But
we must go back a little from the main incidents to introduce to the
reader a certain Patrick Halliday, a general agent for the sale of
English broadcloth, whose place of business was in the Lawnmarket, and
dwelling-house in a tenement long called Peddie’s Land, situated near
the Old Assembly Close. It belongs not much to our story to say that
Mr Halliday was pretty well-to-do in the world, though probably even
with youth and fair looks, if he had been a poor man, he would not have
secured as he did the hand of a certain young lady, at that time more
remarkable than he. Her name was Julia Vallance. We know no more of her
except one particular, which many people would rather be known by than
by wealth, or even family honours, and that was personal beauty--not
of that kind which catches the eye of the common people, and which is
of ordinary occurrence, but of that superior order which, addressing
itself to a cultivated taste, secures an admiration which can be
justified by principles. And so it came to pass that Julia had before
her marriage attained to the reputation--probably not a matter of great
ambition to herself, certainly not at all times very enviable--of being
the belle of the old city. Nor is this saying little, when we claim it
in the face of the world as a truth that Edinburgh, in spite of its
smoke, has at all times been remarkable for many varieties, dark and
fair, of fine women. A result this which, perhaps, we owe to a more
equal mixture of the two fine races, the Celt and Saxon, than ever
took place in England. But Julia had brought her price, and her market
having been made, she could afford to renounce the admiration of a
gaping public in consideration of the love of a husband who was as kind
to her as he was true. As regards their happiness as man and wife, we
will take that in the meantime as admitted, the more by reason that in
due time after the marriage they had a child; and, no doubt, they would
have had many in succession had it not been for the strange occurrence
which forms the fulcrum of our tale.

Apart from the family in Peddie’s Land, and in no manner connected with
it, either by blood or favour, was that of Mr Archibald Blair, a young
man living in Writers’ Court, of whom we can say little more than that
he was connected with the Borgue family in the Stewartry, an advocate,
and also married. We are not informed of either the name or lineage of
his young wife, and far less can we say aught of the perfections or
imperfections she derived from nature. We are only left to presume that
if there had been no love, there would probably have been no marriage,
and in this case, also, we have the fact of a child having been born
to help the presumption of that which, naturally enough, may be taken
as granted.

The two families, far asunder in point of grade, and equally far from
any chance of acquaintanceship, went on in their several walks; nor are
we entitled to say, from anything previously known of them, that they
even knew of each other’s existence--unless, to be sure, the reputation
of Julia for her personal perfections might have come to Blair’s ears
as it did to many who had perhaps never seen her; but, then, the
marriage of a beauty is generally the end of her fame, as it is of her
maiden career; and those who, before that event, are entitled to look
and admire, and, perhaps, wish to whisper their aspirations, not less
than to gaze on her beauty, leave the fair one to the happy man to whom
the gods have assigned her.

We must now allow four years to have passed, during all which time
Patrick Halliday and his wife--still, we presume, retaining her beauty,
at least in the matronly form--were happy as the day is long, or,
rather we should say, as the day is short, for night is more propitious
to love than day. Nothing was known to have occurred to break the
harmony which had begun in love, and surely when we have, as there
appeared to be here, the three requisites of happiness mentioned by
the ancients--health, beauty, and wealth, there was no room for any
suspicion that the good deities repented of their gifts. But all this
only tended to deepen the shadows of a mystery which we are about to
revive at this late period.

One day, when Patrick Halliday returned from a journey to Carlisle,
he was thunderstruck by the intelligence communicated to him by his
servant, that his wife had disappeared two days before, and no one
could tell whither she had gone. The servant, by her own report,
had been sent to Leith on a message, and had taken the daughter,
little Julia, with her; and when she came back, she found the door
unlocked, and her mistress gone. She had made inquiries among the
neighbours, she had gone to the acquaintances of the family, she had
had recourse to every one and every place where it was likely she would
get intelligence of her--all to no effect. Not a single individual
could even say so much as that he or she had seen her that day, and
at length, wearied out by her inquiries, she had had recourse to the
supposition that she had followed her husband to Carlisle.

The effect of this strange intelligence was simply stupifying. Halliday
dropt into a chair, and, compressing his temples with his trembling
hands, seemed to try to retain his consciousness against the echoes of
words which threatened to take it away. For a time he had no power of
thought, and even when the ideas began again to resume their train,
their efforts were broken and wild, tending to nothing but confusion.

He put question after question to the servant, every answer throwing
him back upon new suppositions, all equally fruitless. The only
notion that seemed to give him any relief was, that she had gone to a
distance, to some of her friends--wild enough, yet better than blank
despair; and as for infidelity, the thought never once occurred to him,
where there was no ground on which to rear even a doubt.

At length, on regaining something like composure, he rose from his
seat, and began to walk drearily through the house. He opened his
desk and found that a considerable sum of money he had left there was
untouched. He next opened the press in the wall, where she kept her
clothes. He could not see anything wanting--the gown was there which
latterly she had been in the habit of putting on when she went out to
walk with little Julia; her two bonnets, the good and the better--the
one for everyday and the one for Sunday--hung upon their pegs. Her
jewels, too, which were in a drawer of her cabinet, were all there,
with the exception of the marriage-ring she was in the habit of wearing
every day. There was nothing wanting, save her ordinary body clothes,
including the fringed yellow wrapper in which, during the forenoon,
she used to perform her domestic duties, and which he had often thought
became her better than even her silks. Wherever she had gone, she must
have departed in her undress and bareheaded--nay, her slippers must
have been on her feet, for not only were they away, but the high-heeled
shoes by which she replaced them when she went to walk were in the
place where they usually lay.

In the midst of all this mystery, the relations and others, who had
been quickened into a high-wrought curiosity by the inquiries made by
the servant, dropt in one after another in the expectation that the
missing wife would have returned with her husband, but they went away
more astonished than before, and leaving the almost frantic husband to
an increase of his apprehension and fears.

The dark night came on, and he retired to bed, there to have the
horrors of a roused fancy added to the deductions of a hapless and
demented reason.

In the morning he rose after a sleepless and miserable night, tried to
eat a little breakfast with the playful little Julia, the image of her
mother, by his side, asking him every now and then, in the midst of
her prattle, what had become of mammy, rose and went forth, scarcely
knowing whither to go. Directing his steps almost mechanically towards
his place of business, he ascertained that his clerk knew no more of
the missing wife than the others. On emerging again from his office,
he was doomed to run the ordinary gauntlet of inquiries, and not less
of strange looks where the inquirers seemed afraid to put the question.
Others tried to read him by a furtive glance, and went away with their
construction. No one could give him a word of comfort, if, indeed, he
had not sometimes reason to suspect that there were of his anxious
friends some who were not ill pleased that he had lost, no doubt by
elopement, a wife who outshone theirs.

At length he found his way to the bailie’s office, where he got some of
the town constables to institute a secret search among the closes, and
thus the day passed resultless and weary, leaving him to another night
of misery.

Next day brought scarcely any change, except in the wider spread
throughout the city of the news, which, in the circumstances,
degenerated into the ordinary scandal. Nor did the husband make any
endeavour to check this, by stating to any one the part of the mystery
connected with the clothes--a secret which he kept to himself, and
brooded over with a morbid feeling he perhaps could not have explained
to himself. And that day passed also, leaving at its close an increased
curiosity on the part of the public, but with no change in the
conviction that the lady had merely played her husband false.

The next day was not so barren--nay, it was pregnant with a fact
calculated to increase the excitement without ameliorating the scandal.
On going up the High Street, Halliday met one of the officers who had
been engaged in the search, and who told him that another citizen had
disappeared in a not less mysterious way. The question, “Who is it?”
was put, but not answered, except by another question.

“Was Mrs Halliday acquainted with Mr Archibald Blair, advocate, in
Writers’ Court?”

“No,” was the answer of the husband; “and why do you put the question?”

“Because Mrs Blair requested me,” replied the officer. “She is in great
distress about her husband, and I think you had better see her.”

And so thought Patrick Halliday, as he hurried away to Writers’ Court,
much in the condition of one who would rush into the flames to avoid
the waves; for, dreadful as the death of his beloved wife would be
to him, more dreadful still was the thought that she had eloped with
another man, and that man might be Archibald Blair. On reaching the
house, where he was admitted upon the instant, he found a counterpart
of his own domestic tragedy--everything telling the tale of weariness,
anxiety, and fear; comers and goers with lugubrious countenances; and
Mrs Blair herself in a chair the picture of that very misery he had
himself endured, and was at that very moment enduring.

“Who are you?” she cried, as he approached her. “Are you come with good
news or bad?”

“My name is Halliday, madam,” replied he. “I understand you wish to see
me.”

“As much as you may perhaps wish to see me,” answered the lady.
“The town has been ringing for days with the news of the sudden
disappearance of your wife, who is said to be----,” and she faltered
at the word, “very beautiful. Is it true, and on what day did she
disappear?”

“Too true, madam,” groaned the unhappy man. “Tuesday was the day on
which she was found amissing.”

“Tuesday! Oh, unfortunate day!” rejoined she. “The very one, sir,
when my Archibald left me, perhaps never to return. Can you tell me,”
she continued, as she sobbed hysterically, “whether your wife and my
husband were ever at any time acquainted? Oh, I fear your answer, but I
must hear it.”

“I don’t think,” replied he, “that my wife ever knew of the existence
of your husband. Even _I_ never heard of his name, though I now
understand he was a promising advocate. I can, therefore, give you
small satisfaction; and, I presume, I can get as little from you when I
ask you, what I presume is unnecessary, whether you ever heard that my
wife was in any way acquainted with Mr Blair?”

“No,” replied she; “neither he nor I ever mentioned her name, nor did
it once come to my ears that Archibald was ever seen in the company of
any woman answering to the description of your wife.”

“Most wonderful circumstance, madam,” replied Halliday, into whose mind
a thought at the moment came, suggested by the mystery of the left
clothes. “Pray, madam,” he continued, “can you draw no conclusion from
Mr Blair’s desk or wardrobe whether or not he had provided himself for
the necessities of a journey?”

“That is the very wonder of all the wonders about this strange case,
sir,” she answered. “I have made a careful search, knowing the money
that was in the house, and having sent and inquired whether he had
drawn any from the bank, I am satisfied that he had not a penny of
money upon him. As for his wardrobe, every article is there, with the
exception of what he used when he went to take a walk in the morning--a
light dress, with a round felt hat in place of the square one. Even his
cane stands there in the lobby. Where could he have gone in such an
undress, and without money?”

A pertinent question, which was just the counterpart of that which
Patrick Halliday had put to himself. The resemblance between the two
cases struck him as wonderful, and no doubt if he had stated to Mrs
Blair the analogous facts connected with his wife’s wardrobe, the
untouched money, and the missing slippers, that lady would have shared
in his wonder; but he felt disinclined to add to her apprehensions
by acquainting her with facts which could lead to no practical use.
There was sufficient community of feeling between them without going
into further minutiæ, and the conversation ended with looks of fearful
foreboding.

Patrick Halliday left the house of the advocate only to saunter like
one broke loose from Bedlam, going hither and thither without aim;
learning, as he went, that the absence of Mr Blair had got abroad
abreast of his own evil, and that the public had adopted the theory
that his wife and the advocate had gone off together. The conclusion
was only too natural, nor would it in all likelihood have been much
modified even though all the facts inferring some other solution had
come to be known. Even he himself was coming gradually to see that the
disappearance of the two occurring at the same time, almost at the
same hour, could not be countervailed by the other facts. But behind
all this there was the apparent difficulty to be overcome that two
individuals so well known in a news-loving city should have been in the
habit of meeting, wherever the place might be, without any one having
ever seen them--nay, the almost impossible thing that a woman without
a bonnet, arrayed in a yellow wrapper, and with coloured slippers on
her feet, could have passed through any of the streets without being
recognised, and that the same immunity from all observation should have
been enjoyed by a public man so well known--dressed, too, in a manner
calculated to attract notice. There was certainly another theory, and
some people entertained the possibility, if not the reasonableness of
it, that the two clandestine lovers might have concealed themselves
for an obvious purpose in some of those houses whose keepers have an
interest in the concealment of their guilty lodgers. But this theory
must have appeared a very dubious one, for it involved a degree of
imprudence, if not recklessness, amounting to voluntary ruin, where
a little foresight might have secured their object without further
sacrifice than the care required in the preservation of their guilty
secret. But, unlikely as this theory was, it was not left untested, for
special visits and inquiries were made in all places known as likely to
offer refuge to persons in their circumstances and condition.

All was still in vain; another day passed, and another, till the
entire week proved the inutility of both search and inquiry. The
ordinary age of a wonder was attained, with the usual consequence of
the beginning of that decay which is inherent in all things. Yet it is
with these moral organisms as with the physical--they cast their seeds
to come up again as memories. A month elapsed, and then another, and
another, till these periods carried the mere diluted interest of the
early days. So it is that the big animal, the world, on which man is
one of the small parasites, supplies the sap as the desires require,
and changes it as the appetite changes, with that variety which is
the law of nature. Even as regarded Patrick Halliday and Mrs Blair,
the moral granulation began gradually and silently to fill up the
excavated sores in their hearts, and by and by it ought by rule to have
come about that the cicatrices would follow, and then the smoothing
of the covering, even to the pellucid skin. And as for the public,
new wonders, from the ever-discharging womb of events, were rising up
every day, so that the story of the once famed Julia Halliday and the
advocate Blair was at length assuming the sombre colours of one of the
acted romances of life. But it takes long to make a complete romance.
There is a vitality in moral events as in some physical ones which
revives in overt symptoms, and so it was in the case we are concerned
with. A whole year had at length passed, and brooding silence had waxed
thick over the now comparatively-old event; but the silence was to be
broken by the speaking of an inanimate thing as strange in itself as
the old mystery.

One day, when Patrick Halliday had returned from his office in the
upper part of the city to Peddie’s Land for the purpose of getting a
letter which he had by mistake left on the table in the morning, he
found that the servant had gone out as usual for the purpose of taking
little Julia for an airing; but, getting entrance by his own key, he
proceeded along the lobby to the parlour, on opening the door of which,
and entering, his eye was attracted to something on the floor. The
room was at the time shaded by the hangings drawn together to keep out
the rays of the sun, and, not distinguishing the object very well, he
thought it was some plaything of Julia’s. On taking it up he found, to
his amazement, that it was one of the slippers of his wife. It had a
damp musty smell, which he found so unpleasant that he threw it down on
the floor again, and then began to think where in the world it had come
from, or how it came to be there. The servant might explain it when she
came in; but why she should have gone out with that remaining to be
explained he could not understand. Meanwhile his only conclusion was,
that sufficient search had not been made for the slippers, and that the
dog, which was out with the maid, had dragged the article from some
nook or corner which had escaped observation. Under this impression
he felt inclined to seek for the neighbour of that which had been so
strangely found, altogether oblivious of the fact that, if the slipper
had been left by the runaway, she must have departed either bare-footed
or in her stocking-soles; for her shoes, so far as he could know, had
been accounted for.

But he was not to be called upon to make this search; something else
awaited him; for, as he sat enveloped in the darkness of this new
mystery, his eye, wandering about in the shaded room, was attracted by
another object. Rising, as if by a start, he proceeded to the spot, and
took up, to his further amazement, a man’s shoe. He at first supposed
that it was one of his own; but on looking at the silver buckle, on
which were engraved--not an uncommon thing at the time--two initial
letters, (these were “A. B.,”) he was at no loss for the name. It
was that of the missing advocate. This shoe, like the slipper, was
covered with white mould, and smelt of an odour different from and
more disagreeable than mere must. He was now in more perplexity than
ever, nor could he bring his mind to a supposition of how these things
came to be there. It was the time of popular superstitions, when
intelligences in the shape of ghosts and hobgoblins, and all forms
of good and devilish beings, seemed to have nothing else to do than
to entertain themselves with the fancies, feelings, and passions of
men, and we might not be surprised to find that Patrick Halliday was
brought under the feeling of an indescribable awe--nay, it is doubtful
if even the veritable spirits of his wife and her paramour, if they
had then and there appeared in that shaded room before him, would have
produced a stronger impression upon him than did those speechless yet
eloquent things. A moral vertigo was on him; he threw himself again
into a chair, and felt his knees knocking against each other, as if the
nerves, paralysed by the deep impression upon the brain, were no longer
under the influence of the will.

After sitting for a time in this state of perplexity and awe, from
which he could not extricate himself, the servant, with his daughter,
returned. He called her to his presence, and asked her, pointing to the
shoe and the slipper, “how those things came to be there?”

The girl was seized with as great wonder as he himself had been, and
there was even a greater cause for astonishment on her part, insomuch
as, according to her declaration, she had cleaned out and dusted the
parlour within half an hour of going forth, and these articles were
certainly not in the room then. As for the outer door, she had left it
fastened in the usual way, and the windows were carefully drawn down
before her departure. Where _could_ they have come from, she questioned
both her master and herself, with an equal chance of a satisfactory
answer from either. Then she would not have been a woman if she could
have resisted the claims of superstition in a case so inexplicable, so
extraordinary, so unparalleled even in winter fireside stories. And
so she looked at her master, and he looked at her, in blank wonder,
without either of them having the power of venturing even a surmise as
to how or by what earthly or unearthly means those ominous things, so
terrible in the associations by which they were linked to their owners,
came to be where they were.

After some longer time uselessly occupied, Patrick Halliday bethought
himself of going to Writers’ Court, so taking up the silver-buckled
shoe, and putting it into his large coat pocket, he proceeded to Mrs
Blair’s. He found her in that state of reconciled despondency to which
she had been reduced for more than two months; but the moment she saw
Patrick Halliday enter, she sprang up as if she had been quickened
by the impulse of a new-born hope rising amidst the clouds of a
long-settled despair. The movement was soon stayed when her keenness
scanned the face of the man; but a new feeling took possession of her
when she saw him draw out of his pocket the silver-buckled shoe with
which she had been as familiar as with her own.

“Where, in the Lord’s name!--” she cried, without being able to say
more, while she seized spasmodically the strange object, still covered
as it was with the mould, and with the silver obscured by the passage
of time. And, gazing at it, she heard Halliday’s account of how he came
to be in possession of it, along with the slipper.

“Have you the neighbour in the house?” he inquired.

“No, no,” said she; “but I am certain that that is one of the shoes
Archibald had on the day he disappeared. Oh, sir, I can scarcely look
at these initials; and there is such a death-like odour about it that
it sickens me.”

“It is the same with the slipper,” said he. “It would seem that both of
them had been taken off the feet of corpses.”

“Strange mystery altogether,” added she, with a deep sigh. “Oh, I could
have wished I had not seen these--it only serves to renew my care,
without satisfying my natural desire to know the fate of one I loved so
dearly.”

“It is so with me as well, madam,” rejoined Mr Patrick; “but the
finding of this shoe and slipper may satisfy us of the connexion
between your husband and my wife.”

“Yes, yes,” ejaculated she; “but oh, merciful God! what a wretched
satisfaction to the bereaved wife and the deserted child. You are a
man, and can bear up. A poor woman must sit in solitude and mourn,
while the flesh wastes day by day under the weary spirit.”

“And you can suggest nothing to help me to an explanation of this new
mystery?” said he.

“Nothing; all is darker than ever,” replied she. “But, sir, you have
got the only trace that for a long year has been found of this most
unfortunate--I fear, unhappy pair, and it will be for you to improve it
in some way. Something more will follow. I will go over with you myself
to your house. A woman’s eyes are sharper than a man’s. I would like to
examine the house, and judge for myself.”

And the lady, rising, went and dressed herself. In a few minutes more
they were on the way to Peddie’s Land; probably, as they went along,
objects of speculation to those who knew the strange link by which
their fortunes were joined. Nor was it unlikely that evil tongues might
suggest that as their partners had played them false, they intended to
make amends by a kind of poetical retribution. Alas! how different from
their thoughts, how unlike their feelings, how far distant from their
object!

On arriving at the house, a new wonder was to meet them, almost upon
the threshold. The servant ran forward to Halliday, holding in her hand
the partner of the silver-buckled shoe which her master had in his
pocket. She was utterly unable to say a word, her eyes were strained
not less in width than in intensity, her mouth was open like that
of an idiot, and motioning and muttering, “Come, come,” she led her
master and Mrs Blair on through two or three rooms till she came to a
small closet, at the back of which there was a door, now for the first
time in Patrick Halliday’s experience found open. In explanation of
which peculiarity we require to suspend our narrative for a minute or
two, to enable us to inform the reader, that the house then occupied
by Halliday had, five years before, and immediately preceding his
marriage, been in possession of George Morgan, a wool-dealer.

Morgan’s warehouse, where he stored his wool, entered from a close to
the west, through a pend, between Peddie’s Land and the large tenement
adjoining. The run of the warehouse was thus at right angles to that
of the dwelling-house, and Morgan was thereby enabled to knock out a
small door at the back of a press, through which he could conveniently
pass to his place of business without being at the trouble of going
down the close to the main entry. After Morgan’s death, the house and
warehouse went to his heirs, from whom Halliday rented the former,
the other having been let to some other person for three years, after
which it had been without a tenant. We may state also that Halliday
was at first quite aware of the existence of the door at the back of
the press, and had even taken the precaution of getting it locked; but
as no requisition had been made by the tenant of the warehouse to have
the communication more securely barred, the door had been left in the
condition we have described.

Resuming our story: the servant, when she came to the point where we
left her, stopped and trembled; but by this time Halliday had begun to
see whither these pointings tended, and pushing the girl aside with
a view to examine the door, he was astonished to find that it opened
to his touch--a fact better known by Nettle, his dog, who had, as the
shoes testified, been there before.

On entering the warehouse, all the windows of which were shut except
one, through which a ray of light struggled to illuminate merely a
part of the room, the party beheld a sight which in all likelihood
would retain a vividness in their memories after all other images of
earthly things had passed away. Right in the middle of the partial
light admitted by the solitary window lay the bodies of two persons--a
man and a woman. The latter had on her a yellow morning gown trimmed
with green. One slipper was on, the other off; her head, which was
uncovered, was surmounted by the high toupee of the times, which
consisted of the collected hair brushed up and supported by a concealed
cushion. The man had on a morning dress, with a round felt hat, which
still retained its place on his head. There was no corruption in the
bodies of that kind called moist. They were nearly shrivelled, but that
to an extent which reduced them to little other than skeletons covered
with a brown skin--a state of the bodies which probably resulted
from the dry air of the wareroom, heated as it was by a smithy being
immediately below it, the smoke of which was conveyed by a flue up the
side of the tenement. The two bodies lay clasped in each other’s arms,
the faces were so close that the noses almost met; the eyes were open,
and though the balls were shrunk so much that they could not be seen,
the lids, which had shrunk also, were considerably apart. These were
the bodies of Julia Halliday and Archibald Blair.

There was not a word spoken by the searchers. Their eyes told them all
that was necessary to convince them of the identity of those who lay
before them. Nor, when Halliday took up a paper which lay at the head
of Blair, did he think it necessary to make any observation of surprise
at what was in keeping with what they saw.

“Oh, read,” said Mrs Blair, as she gasped in the midst of her agony.

Halliday, holding up the paper so as to receive the light, read as
follows:--

  “Whoever you may be, man or woman, who first discovers the bodies of
  me and her who lies by my side will please, as he or she hopes for
  mercy, deliver this paper either to Mr Patrick Halliday of Peddie’s
  Land, or Mrs Archibald Blair in Writers’ Court, that they may take
  the means of getting us decently interred. Julia Halliday and I,
  Archibald Blair, met and looked and loved. These few words contain
  the secret of our misfortune, and must be the excuse of our crime
  in taking away our lives. Our love was too strong to be quelled by
  resolution, too sacred to be corrupted by coarse enjoyment of the
  senses, too hopeless to be borne amidst the impediments of our mutual
  obligations to our spouses. We felt and believed that it was only
  our mortal bodies that belonged to our partners, our spirits were
  ours and ours alone by that decree which made the soul, with its
  sympathies and its elections, before ever the world was, or marriage,
  which is only a convention of man’s making. We loved, we sinned not,
  yet we were unhappy, because we could not fulfil the obligations of
  affection to those we had sworn at the altar to love and honour.
  Often have we torn ourselves from each other with vows on our lips
  of mutual avoidance, but these efforts were vain. We could not live
  estranged, and we flew again to each other’s arms, again to vow,
  again to meet, again to be blessed, again to be tortured. This life
  was unendurable; and, left to the alternative of parting or dying,
  we selected the latter. The poison was bought by me in two separate
  vials. As I write, Julia holds hers in her hands, and smiles as she
  is about to swallow the drug. We have resolved to lie down face to
  face, so as to be able to look into each other’s eyes and watch
  jealously Death as he drags us slowly from each other. I have now
  swallowed my draft, smiling the while in Julia’s face. She does the
  same. The pen trembles in my hand. Farewell, my wife: Julia mutters,
  ‘Farewell, my husband.’ Against neither have we ever sinned.

                                                      “ARCHIBALD BLAIR.”




[Illustration]




The Story of Mary Brown.


If the reader of what I am going to relate for his or her edification,
or for perhaps a greater luxury, viz., wonder, should be so
unreasonable as to ask for my authority, I shall be tempted, because
a little piqued, to say that no one should be too particular about
the source of pleasure, inasmuch as, if you will enjoy nothing but
what you can prove to be a reality, you will, under good philosophical
leadership, have no great faith in the sun--a thing which you never
saw, the existence of which you are only assured of by a round
figure of light on the back of your eye, and which may be likened to
tradition; so all you have to do is to believe like a good Catholic,
and be contented, even though I begin so poorly as to try to interest
you in two very humble beings who have been dead for many years, and
whose lives were like a steeple without a bell in it, the intention
of which you cannot understand till your eye reaches the weathercock
upon the top, and then you wonder at so great an erection for so small
an object. The one bore the name of William Halket, a young man, who,
eight or nine years before he became of much interest either to himself
or any other body, was what in our day is called an Arab of the City--a
poor street boy, who didn’t know who his father was, though, as for his
mother, he knew her by a pretty sharp experience, insomuch as she took
from him every penny he made by holding horses, and gave him more cuffs
than cakes in return. But Bill got out of this bondage by the mere
chance of having been taken a fancy to by Mr Peter Ramsay, innkeeper
and stabler, in St Mary’s Wynd, (an ancestor, we suspect, of the
Ramsays of Barnton,) who thought he saw in the City Arab that love of
horse-flesh which belongs to the Bedouin, and who accordingly elevated
him to the position of a stable-boy, with board and as many shillings a
week as there are days in that subdivision of time.

Nor did William Halket--to whom for his merits we accord the full
Christian name--do any discredit to the perspicacity of his master,
if it was not that he rather exceeded the hopes of his benefactor,
for he was attentive to the horses, civil to the farmers, and handy
at anything that came in his way. Then, to render the connexion
reciprocal, William was gratefully alive to the conviction that if he
had not been, as it were, taken from the street, the street might have
been taken from him, by his being locked up some day in the Heart of
Midlothian. So things went on in St Mary’s Wynd for five or six years,
and might have gone on for twice that period, had it not been that at
a certain hour of a certain day William fell in love with a certain
Mary Brown, who had come on that very day to be an under-housemaid in
the inn; and strange enough, it was a case of “love at first sight,”
the more by token that it took effect the moment that Mary entered the
stable with a glass of whisky in her hand sent to him by Mrs Ramsay. No
doubt it is seldom that a fine blooming young girl, with very pretty
brown hair and very blue eyes, appears to a young man with such a
recommendation in her hand, but we are free to say that the whisky had
nothing to do with an effect which is well known to be the pure result
of the physical attributes of the individual. Nay, our statement might
have been proved by the counterpart effect produced upon Mary herself,
for she was struck by William at the same moment when she handed him
the glass; and we are not to assume that the giving of a pleasant boon
is always attended with the same effect as the receiving of it.

But, as our story requires, it is the love itself between these two
young persons whose fates were so remarkable we have to do with--not
the causes, which are a mystery in all cases. Sure it is, humble in
position as they were, they could love as strongly, as fervently,
perhaps as ecstatically, as great people--nay, probably more so,
for education has a greater chance of moderating the passion than
increasing it; and so, notwithstanding of what Plutarch says of
the awfully consuming love between Phrygius and Picrea, and also
what Shakespeare has sung or said about a certain Romeo and a lady
called Juliet, we are certain that the affection between these grand
personages was not _more_ genuine, tender, and true than that which
bound the simple and unsophisticated hearts of Will Halket and Mary
Brown. But at best we merely play on the surface of a deep subject when
we try with a pen to describe feelings, and especially the feelings
of love. We doubt, if even the said pen were plucked from Cupid’s
wing, it would help us much. We are at best only left to a choice of
expressions, and perhaps the strongest we could use are those which
have already been used a thousand times--the two were all the world
to each other, the world outside nothing at all to them; so that
they could have been as happy on the top of Mount Ararat, or on the
island of Juan Fernandez, provided they should be always in each
other’s company, as they were in St Mary’s Wynd. And as for whispered
protestations and chaste kisses--for really their love had a touch of
romance about it you could hardly have expected, but which yet kept
it pure, if not in some degree elevated above the loves of common
people--these were repeated so often about the quiet parts of Arthur’s
Seat and the Queen’s Park, and the fields about the Dumbiedykes and
Duddingstone Loch, that they were the very moral aliments on which
they lived. In short, to Mary Brown the great Duke of Buccleuch was as
nothing compared to Willie Halket, and to Willie Halket the beautiful
Duchess of Grammont would have been as nothing compared to simple Mary
Brown. All which is very amiable and very necessary, for if it had been
so ordained that people should feel the exquisite sensations of love
in proportion as they were beautiful, or rich, or endowed with talent,
(according to a standard,) our world would have been even more queer
than that kingdom described by Gulliver, where the ugliest individual
is made king or queen.

Things continued in this very comfortable state at the old inn in
St Mary’s Wynd for about a year, and it had come to enter into the
contemplation of Will that upon getting an increase of his wages
he would marry Mary and send her to live with her mother, a poor
hard-working washerwoman, in Big Lochend Close; whereunto Mary was
so much inclined, that she looked forward to the day as the one that
promised to be the happiest that she had yet seen, or would ever see.
But, as an ancient saying runs, the good hour is in no man’s choice;
and about this time it so happened that Mr Peter Ramsay, having had a
commission from an old city man, a Mr Dreghorn, located as a planter
in Virginia, to send him out a number of Scottish horses, suggested
to William that he would do well to act as supercargo and groom. Mr
Dreghorn had offered to pay a good sum to the man who should bring them
out safe, besides paying his passage over and home. And Mr Ramsay would
be ready to receive Will into his old place again on his return. As for
Mary, with regard to whom the master knew his man’s intentions, she
would remain where she was, safe from all temptation, and true to the
choice of her heart. This offer pleased William, because he saw that
he could make some money out of the adventure, whereby he would be the
better able to marry, and make a home for the object of his affections;
but he was by no means sure that Mary would consent; for women, by some
natural divining of the heart, look upon delays in affairs of love as
ominous and dangerous. And so it turned out that one Sabbath evening,
when they were seated beneath a tree in the King’s Park, and William
had cautiously introduced the subject to her, she was like other women.

“The bird that gets into the bush,” she said, as the tears fell upon
her cheeks, “sometimes forgets to come back to the cage again. I would
rather hae the lean lintie in the hand than the fat finch on the wand.”

“But you forget, Mary, love,” was the answer of Will, “that you can
feed the lean bird, but you can’t feed me. It is I who must support
you. It is to enable me to do that which induces me to go. I will come
with guineas in my pocket where there are now only pennies and placks,
and you know, Mary, the Scotch saying, ‘A heavy purse makes a light
heart.’”

“And an unsteady one,” rejoined Mary. “And you may bring something else
wi’ you besides the guineas; may be, a wife.”

“One of Mr Dreghorn’s black beauties,” said Will, laughing. “No, no,
Mary, I am too fond of the flaxen ringlets, the rosy cheeks, and the
blue eyes, and you know, Mary, you have all these, so you have me in
your power. But to calm your fears and stop your tears I’ll tell you
what I’ll do.”

“Stay at hame, Will, and we’ll live and dee thegither.”

“No,” replied Will, “but, like the genteel lover I have read of, I will
swear on your Bible that I will return to you within the year, and
marry you at the Tron Kirk, and throw my guineas into the lap of your
marriage-gown, and live with you until I die.”

For all which and some more we may draw upon our fancy, but certain
it is, as the strange story goes, that Will did actually then and
there--for Mary had been at the Tron Kirk and had her Bible in her
pocket, (an article the want of which is not well supplied by the
scent-bottle of our modern Marys,)--swear to do all he had said,
whereupon Mary was so far satisfied that she gave up murmuring--perhaps
no more than that. Certain also it is that before the month was done,
Will, with his living kicking charges, and after more of these said
tears from Mary than either of them had arithmetic enough to enable
them to count, embarked at Leith for Richmond, at which place the
sugar-planter had undertaken to meet him.

We need say nothing of the voyage across the Atlantic--somewhat arduous
at that period--nor need we pick up Will again till we find him in
Richmond with his horses all safe, and as fat and sleek as if they
had been fed by Neptune’s wife, and had drawn her across in place of
her own steeds. There he found directions waiting from Mr Dreghorn
to the effect that he was to proceed with the horses to Peach Grove,
his plantation, a place far into the heart of the country; but Will
was content, for had he not time and to spare within the year, and he
would see some more of the new world, which, so far as his experience
yet went, seemed to him to be a good place for a freeman to live in. So
off he went, putting up at inns by the way as well supplied with food
and fodder as Mr Peter Ramsay’s, in St Mary’s Wynd, and showing off his
nags to the planters, who wondered at their bone and muscle, the more
by reason they had never seen Scotch horses before. As he progressed,
the country seemed to Will more and more beautiful, and by the time
he reached Peach Grove he had come to the unpatriotic conclusion that
all it needed was Mary Brown, with her roses, and ringlets, and eyes,
passing like an angel--lovers will be poets--among these ebon beauties,
to make it the finest country in the world.

Nor when the Scotsman reached Peach Grove did the rosy side of matters
recede into the shady, for he was received in a great house by Mr
Dreghorn with so much kindness, that, if the horses rejoiced in maize
and oats, Will found himself, as the saying goes, in five-bladed
clover. But more awaited him, even thus much more, that the planter,
and his fine lady of a wife as well, urged him to remain on the
plantation, where he would be well paid and well fed; and when Will
pleaded his engagement to return to Scotland within the year, the
answer was ready that he might spend eight months in Virginia at least,
which would enable him to take home more money--an answer that seemed
so very reasonable, if not prudent, that “Sawny” saw the advantage
thereof and agreed. But we need hardly say that this was conceded upon
the condition made with himself, that he would write to Mary all the
particulars, and also upon the condition acceded to by Mr Dreghorn,
that he would take the charge of getting the letter sent to Scotland.

All which having been arranged, Mr Halket--for we cannot now continue
to take the liberty of calling him Will--was forthwith elevated to the
position of driving negroes in place of horses, an occupation which he
did not much relish, insomuch that he was expected to use the lash,
an instrument of which he had been very chary in his treatment of
four-legged chattels, and which he could not bring himself to apply
with anything but a sham force in reference to the two-legged species.
But this objection he thought to get over by using the sharp crack of
his Jehu-voice, as a substitute for that of the whip; and in this he
persevered, in spite of the jeers of the other drivers, who told him
the thing had been tried often, but that the self-conceit of the negro
met the stimulant and choked it at the very entrance to the ear; and
this he soon found to be true. So he began to do as others did, and he
was the sooner reconciled to the strange life into which he had been
precipitated by the happy condition of the slaves themselves, who,
when their work was over, and at all holiday hours, dressed themselves
in the brightest colours of red and blue and white, danced, sang, ate
corn-cakes and bacon, and drank coffee with a zest which would have
done a Scotch mechanic, with his liberty to produce a lock-out, much
good to see. True, indeed, the white element of the population was
at a discount at Peach Grove. But in addition to the above source
of reconciliation, Halket became day by day more captivated by the
beauty of the country, with its undulating surface, its wooded clumps,
its magnolias, tulip-trees, camellias, laurels, passion-flowers, and
palms, its bright-coloured birds, and all the rest of the beauties for
which it is famous all over the world. But nature might charm as it
might--Mary Brown was three thousand miles away.

Meanwhile the time passed pleasantly, for he was accumulating money,
Mary’s letter would be on the way, and the hope of seeing her within
the appointed time was dominant over all the fascinations which
charmed the senses. But when the month came in which he ought to have
received a letter, no letter came--not much this to be thought of,
though Mr Dreghorn tried to impress him with the idea that there must
be some change of sentiment in the person from whom he expected the
much-desired answer. So Halket wrote again, giving the letter, as
before, to his master, who assured him it was sent carefully away,
and while it was crossing the Atlantic he was busy in improving his
penmanship and arithmetic, under the hope held out to him by his master
that he would, if he remained, be raised to a book-keeper’s desk; for
the planter had seen early that he had got hold of a long-headed,
honest, sagacious “Sawny,” who would be of use to him. On with still
lighter wing the intermediate time sped again, but with no better
result in the shape of an answer from her who was still the object
of his day fancies and his midnight dreams. Nor did all this kill
his hope. A third letter was despatched, but the returning period
was equally a blank. We have been counting by months, which, as they
sped, soon brought round the termination of his year, and with growing
changes too in himself, for as the notion began to worm itself into
his mind that his beloved Mary was either dead or faithless, another
power was quietly assailing him from within, no other than ambition
in the most captivating of all shapes, Mammon. We all know the manner
in which the golden deity acquires his authority, nor do we need to
have recourse to the conceit of the old writer who tells us that the
reason why gold has such an influence upon man lies in the fact that
it is of the colour of the sun, which is the fountain of light, and
life, and joy. Certain it is, at least, that Halket having been taken
into the counting-house on a raised salary, began “to lay by,” as the
Scotch call it, and by and by, with the help of a little money lent to
him by his master, he began by purchasing produce from the neighbouring
plantations, and selling it where he might, all which he did with
advantage, yet with the ordinary result to a Scotsman, that while he
turned to so good account the king’s head, the king’s head began to
turn his own.

And now in place of months we must begin to count by lustrums, and
the first five years, even with all the thoughts of his dead, or, at
least, lost Mary, proved in Halket’s case the truth of the book written
by a Frenchman, to prove that a man is a plant, for he had already
thrown out from his head or heart so many roots in the Virginian soil
that he was bidding fair to be as firmly fixed in his new sphere as a
magnolia, and if that bore golden blossoms, so did he; yet, true to
his first love, there was not among all these flowers one so fair as
the fair-haired Mary. Nay, with all hope not yet extinguished, he had
even at the end of the period resolved upon a visit to Scotland, when
strangely enough, and sadly too, he was told by Mr Dreghorn that having
had occasion to hear from Mr Peter Ramsay on the subject of some more
horse dealings, that person had reported to him that Mary Brown, the
lover of his old stable-boy, was dead. A communication this which, if
it had been made at an earlier period, would have prostrated Halket
altogether, but it was softened by his long foreign anticipations, and
he was thereby the more easily inclined to resign his saddened soul
to the further dominion of the said god, Mammon, for as to the notion
of putting any of those beautiful half-castes he sometimes saw about
the planter’s house at Peach Grove, in the place of her of the golden
ringlets, it was nothing better than the desecration of a holy temple.
Then the power of the god increased with the offerings, one of which
was his large salary as manager, a station to which he was elevated
shortly after he had received the doleful tidings of Mary’s death.
Another lustrum is added, and we arrive at ten years, and yet another,
and we come to fifteen; at the end of which time Mr Dreghorn died,
leaving Halket as one of his trustees, for behoof of his wife, in whom
the great plantation vested. If we add yet another lustrum, we find
the Scot--fortunate, save for one misfortune that made him a joyless
worshipper of gold--purchasing from the widow, who wished to return to
England, the entire plantation under the condition of an annuity.

And Halket was now rich, even beyond what he had ever wished, but the
chariot-wheels of Time would not go any slower--nay, they moved faster,
and every year more silently, as if the old Father had intended to
cheat the votary of Mammon into a belief that he would live for ever.
The lustrums still passed: another five, another, and another, till
there was scope for all the world being changed, and a new generation
taking the place of that with which William Halket and Mary Brown
began; and he was changed too, for he began to take on those signs of
age which make the old man a painted character; but in one thing he
was not changed, and that was the worshipful steadfastness, the sacred
fidelity, with which he still treasured in his mind the form and face,
the words and the smiles, the nice and refined peculiarities that feed
love as with nectared sweets, which once belonged to Mary Brown, the
first creature that had moved his affections, and the last to hold
them, as the object of a cherished memory for ever. Nor with time so
deceptive, need we be so sparing in dealing out those periods of five
years, but say at once that at last William Halket could count twelve
of them since first he set his foot on Virginian soil: yea, he had been
there for sixty summers, and he had now been a denizen of the world for
seventy-eight years. In all which our narrative has been strange, but
we have still the stranger fact to set forth, that at this late period
he was seized with that moral disease (becoming physical in time)
which the French call _mal du pays_, the love of the country where one
was born and first enjoyed the fresh springs that gush from the young
heart. Nor was it the mere love of country, as such, for he was seized
with a particular wish to be where Mary lay in the churchyard of the
Canongate, to erect a tombstone over her, to seek out her relations and
enrich them, to make a worship out of a disappointed love, to dedicate
the last of his thoughts to the small souvenirs of her humble life.
Within a month this old man was on his way to Scotland, having sold the
plantation, and taken bills with him to an amount of little less than a
hundred thousand pounds.

In the course of five weeks William Halket put his foot on the old
pier of Leith, on which some very old men were standing, who had been
urchins when he went away. The look of the old harbour revived the
image which had been imprinted on his mind when he sailed, and the
running of the one image into the other produced the ordinary illusion
of all that long interval appearing as a day; but there was no illusion
in the change, that Mary Brown was there when he departed, and there
was no Mary Brown there now. Having called a coach he told the driver
to proceed up Leith Walk, and take him to Peter Ramsay’s Inn, in St
Mary’s Wynd; but the man told him there was no inn there, nor had been
in his memory. The man added that he would take him to the White Horse
in the Canongate, and thither accordingly he drove him. On arriving at
the inn he required the assistance of the waiter to enable him to get
out of the coach, nor probably did the latter think this any marvel,
after looking into a face so furrowed with years, so pale with the
weakness of a languid circulation, so saddened with care. The rich man
had only an inn for a home, nor in all his native country was there one
friend whom he hoped to find alive. Neither would a search help him,
as he found on the succeeding day, when, by the help of his staff, he
essayed an infirm walk in the great thoroughfare of the old city. The
houses were not much altered, but the signboards had got new names and
figures, and as for the faces, they were to him even as those in Crete
to the Cretan, after he awoke from a sleep of forty-seven years--a
similitude only true in this change, for Epimenidas was still as young
when he awoke as when he went to sleep, but William Halket was old
among the young and the grown, who were unknown to him as he was indeed
strange to them. True, too, as the coachman said, Peter Ramsay’s Inn,
where he had heard Mary singing at her work, and the stable where he
had whistled blithely among his favourite horses, were no longer to
be seen--_etiam cineres perierunt_--their very sites were occupied by
modern dwellings. What of that small half-sunk lodging in Big Lochend
Close, where Mary’s mother lived, and where Mary had been brought up,
where perhaps Mary had died. Would it not be a kind of pilgrimage to
hobble down the Canongate to that little lodging, and might there
not be for him a sad pleasure even to enter and sit down by the same
fireplace where he had seen the dearly-beloved face, and listened to
her voice, to him more musical than the melody of angels?

And so after he had walked about till he was wearied, and his steps
became more unsteady and slow, and as yet without having seen a face
which he knew, he proceeded in the direction of the Big Close. There
was, as regards stone and lime, little change here; he soon recognised
the half-sunk window where, on the Sunday evenings, he had sometimes
tapped as a humorous sign that he was about to enter, which had often
been responded to by Mary’s finger on the glass, as a token that he
would be welcome. It was sixty years since then. A small corb would now
hold all that remained of both mother and daughter. He turned away his
head as if sick, and was about to retrace his steps. Yet the wish to
enter that house rose again like a yearning, and what more in the world
than some souvenir of the only being on earth he ever loved was there
for him to yearn for? All his hundred thousand pounds were now, dear as
money had been to him, nothing in comparison of the gratification of
seeing the room where she was born--yea, where probably she had died.
In as short a time as his trembling limbs would carry him down the
stair, which, in the ardour of his young blood he had often taken at a
bound, he was at the foot of it; there was there the old familiar dark
passage, with doors on either side, but it was the farthest door that
was of any interest to him. Arrived at it he stood in doubt. He would
knock, and he would not; the mystery of an undefined fear was over him,
and yet, what had he to fear, for half a century the inmates had been
changed, no doubt, over and over again, and he would be as unknowing
as unknown? At length the trembling finger achieves the furtive tap,
and the door was opened by a woman, whose figure could only be seen by
him in coming between him and the obscure light that came in by the
half-sunk window in front; nor could she, even if she had had the power
of vision, see more of him, for the lobby was still darker.

“Who may live here?” said he, in the expectation of hearing some name
unknown to him.

The answer, in a broken cracked voice, was not slow--

“Mary Brown; and what may you want of her?”

“Mary Brown!” but not a word more could he say, and he stood as still
as a post, not a movement of any kind did he show for so long a time
that the woman might have been justified in her fear of a very spirit.

“And can ye say nae mair, sir?” rejoined she. “Is my name a bogle to
terrify human beings?”

But still he was silent, for the reason that he could not think--far
less speak, nor even for some minutes could he achieve more than the
repetition of the words, “Mary Brown.”

“But hadna ye better come in, good sir?” said she. “Ye may ken our auld
saying: ‘They that speak in the dark may miss their mark;’ for words
carry nae light in their een ony mair than me, for, to say the truth, I
am old and blind.”

And, moving more as an automaton than as one under a will, Halket was
seated on a chair with this said old and blind woman by his side, who
sat silent and with blank eyes waiting for the stranger to explain
what he wanted. Nor was the opportunity lost by Halket, who, unable to
understand how she should have called herself Mary Brown, began, in
the obscure light of the room, to scrutinise her form and features,
and in doing this he went upon the presumption that this second Mary
Brown only carried the name of the first; but as he looked he began
to detect features which riveted his eyes; where the re-agent was so
sharp and penetrating, the analysis was rapid--it was also hopeful--it
was also fearful. Yes, it was true that that woman was _his_ Mary
Brown. The light-brown ringlets were reduced to a white stratum of thin
hair; the blue eyes were gray, without light and without speculation;
the roses on the cheeks were replaced by a pallor, the forerunner of
the colour of death; the lithe and sprightly form was a thin spectral
body, where the sinews appeared as strong cords, and the skin seemed
only to cover a skeleton. Yet withal he saw in her that identical Mary
Brown. That wreck was dear to him; it was a relic of the idol he had
worshipped through life; it was the only remnant in the world which had
any interest for him; and he could on the instant have clasped her to
his breast, and covered her pale face with his tears. But how was he to
act? A sudden announcement might startle and distress her.

“There was a Mary Brown,” said he, “who was once a housemaid in Mr
Peter Ramsay’s Inn in St Mary’s Wynd.”

“And who can it be that can recollect that?” was the answer, as she
turned the sightless orbs on the speaker. “Ye maun be full o’ years.
Yes, that was my happy time, even the only happy time I ever had in
this world.”

“And there was one William Halket there at that time also,” he
continued.

Words which, as they fell upon the ear, seemed to be a stimulant so
powerful as to produce a jerk in the organ; the dulness of the eyes
seemed penetrated with something like light, and a tremor passed over
her entire frame.

“That name is no to be mentioned, sir,” she said, nervously, “except
aince, and nae mair; he was my ruin; for he pledged his troth to me,
and promised to come back and marry me, but he never came.”

“Nor wrote you?” said Halket.

“No, never,” replied she; “I would hae gien the world for a scrape o’
the pen o’ Will Halket; but it’s a’ past now, and I fancy he is dead
and gone to whaur there is neither plighted troth, nor marriage, nor
giving in marriage; and my time, too, will be short.”

A light broke in upon the mind of Halket, carrying the suspicion that
Mr Dreghorn had, for the sake of keeping him at Peach Grove, never
forwarded the letters, whereto many circumstances tended.

“And what did you do when you found Will had proved false?” inquired
Halket. “Why should that have been your ruin?”

“Because my puir heart was bound up in him,” said she, “and I never
could look upon another man. Then what could a puir woman do? My mother
died, and I came here to work as she wrought: ay, fifty years ago, and
my reward has been the puir boon o’ the parish bread; ay, and, waur
than a’ the rest, blindness.”

“Mary,” said Halket, as he took her emaciated hand into his, scarcely
less emaciated, and divested of the genial warmth of life.

The words carried the old sound, and she started and shook.

“Mary!” he continued, “Will Halket still lives. He was betrayed, as you
have been betrayed. He wrote three letters to you, all of which were
kept back by his master, for fear of losing one who he saw would be
useful to him; and, to complete the conspiracy, he reported you dead
upon the authority of Peter Ramsay. Whereupon Will betook himself to
the making of money, but he never forgot his Mary, whose name has been
heard as often as the song of the birds in the groves of Virginia.”

“Ah, you are Will himself!” cried she. “I ken now the sound o’ your
voice in the word ‘Mary,’ even as you used to whisper it in my ear in
the fields at St Leonard’s. Let me put my hand upon your head, and move
my fingers ower your face. Yes, yes; oh, mercy, merciful God, how can
my poor worn heart bear a’ this!”

“Mary, my dear Mary!” ejaculated the moved man, “come to my bosom and
let me press you to my heart; for this is the only blissful moment I
have enjoyed for sixty years.”

Nor was Mary deaf to his entreaties, for she resigned herself as in
a swoon to an embrace, which an excess of emotion, working on the
shrivelled heart and the wasted form, probably prevented her from
feeling.

“But, O Willie!” she cried, “a life’s love lost; a lost life on both
our sides.”

“Not altogether,” rejoined he, in the midst of their mutual sobs. “It
may be--nay, it is--that our sands are nearly run. Yea, a rude shake
would empty the glass, so weak and wasted are both of us; but still
there are a few grains to pass, and they shall be made golden. You
are the only living creature in all this world I have any care for.
More thousands of pounds than you ever dreamt of are mine, and will
be yours. We will be married even yet, not as the young marry, but as
those marry who may look to their knowing each other as husband and
wife in heaven, where there are no cruel interested men to keep them
asunder; and for the short time we are here you shall ride in your
carriage as a lady, and be attended by servants; nor shall a rude
breath of wind blow upon you which it is in the power of man to save
you from.”

“Ower late, Willie; ower late,” sighed the exhausted woman, as she
still lay in his arms. “But if all this should please my Will--I canna
use another name, though you are now a gentleman--I will do even as you
list, and that which has been by a cruel fate denied us here we may
share in heaven.”

“And who shall witness this strange marriage?” said he. “There is no
one in Edinburgh now that I know or knows me. Has any one ever been
kind to you?”

“Few, few indeed,” answered she. “I can count only three.”

“I must know these wonderful exceptions,” said he, as he made an
attempt at a grim smile; “for those who have done a service to Mary
Brown have done a double service to me. I will make every shilling they
have given you a hundred pounds. Tell me their names.”

“There is John Gilmour, my landlord,” continued she, “who, though he
needed a’ his rents for a big family, passed me many a term, and forbye
brought me often, when I was ill and couldna work, many a bottle o’
wine; there is Mrs Paterson o’ the Watergate, too, who aince when I
gaed to her in sair need gave me a shilling out o’ three that she
needed for her bairns; and Mrs Galloway o’ Little Lochend, slipt in to
me a peck o’ meal ae morning when I had naething for breakfast.”

“And these shall be at our marriage, Mary,” said he. “They shall be
dressed to make their eyes doubtful if they are themselves. John
Gilmour will wonder how these pounds of his rent he passed you from
have grown to hundreds. Mrs Paterson’s shilling will have grown as
the widow’s mite never grew, even in heaven; and Mrs Galloway’s peck
of meal will be made like the widow’s cruse of oil--it will never be
finished while she is on earth.”

Whereupon Mary raised her head. The blank eyes were turned upon him,
and something like a smile played over the thin and wasted face. At the
same moment a fair-haired girl of twelve years came jumping into the
room, and only stopped when she saw a stranger.

“That is Helen Kemp,” said Mary, who knew her movements. “I forgot
Helen; she lights my fire, and when I was able to gae out used to lead
me to the park.”

“And she shall be one of the favoured ones of the earth,” said he, as
he took by the hand the girl, whom the few words from Mary had made
sacred to him, adding, “Helen, dear, you are to be kinder to Mary than
you have ever been;” and, slipping into the girl’s hand a guinea, he
whispered, “You shall have as many of these as will be a bigger tocher
to you than you ever dreamed of, for what you have done for Mary Brown.”

And thus progressed to a termination a scene perhaps more extraordinary
than ever entered into the head of a writer of natural things
and events not beyond the sphere of the probable. Nor did what
afterwards took place fall short of the intentions of a man whose
intense yearnings to make up for what had been lost led him into the
extravagance of a vain fancy. He next day took a great house and
forthwith furnished it in proportion to his wealth. He hired servants
in accordance, and made all the necessary arrangements for the
marriage. Time which had been so cruel to him and his sacred Mary was
put under the obligation of retribution. John Gilmour, Mrs Paterson,
Mrs Galloway, and Helen Kemp were those, and those alone, privileged
to witness the ceremony. We would not like to describe how they were
decked out, nor shall we try to describe the ceremony itself. But vain
are the aspirations of man when he tries to cope with the Fates! The
changed fortune was too much for the frail and wasted bride to bear.
She swooned at the conclusion of the ceremony, and was put into a
silk-curtained bed. Even the first glimpse of grandeur was too much for
the spirit whose sigh was vanity, all is vanity, and, with the words on
her lips, “A life’s love lost,” she died.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of the Merrillygoes.


The world has been compared to many things,--a playhouse, a madhouse,
a penitentiary, a caravanserai, and so forth; but I think a show-box
wherein all, including man, is turned by machinery, is better than any
of them. And every one looks through his own little round hole at all
the rest, he being both object and subject. How the scenes shift too!
the belief of one age being the laughing-stock of the next. Witches and
brownies and fairies and ghosts and bogles have lost their quiddity,
and given birth to quips and laughs; but I have here, as a simple
storyteller, to do with one example of these vanished beliefs, what was
in folk-lore called the “Merrillygoes,” sometimes in the old Scotch
dictionaries spelled “Mirrligoes.” It was a supposed affection of the
eyes, in which the victim or patient, as you suppose the visitation
brought on by natural or supernatural powers, fancied he saw men and
women and inanimate things which were not at the time before him.
I think the affection was different from the “glamour” which was
generally attributed to the wrath of fairies; and both indeed might,
after all, be resolved into the pseudoblepsy of the old, and the
monomania of the new nosologies. But dismissing all learning--which,
however potent to puff up man’s pride, and then prick the bladder of
his conceit, has no concern with a story--I at once introduce to you Mr
David Tweedie. He was one of those Davids who, for some Scotch reason,
are called Dauvit; and, like other simple men, he had a wife, whose
name, I think, was Semple, Robina Semple, certainly not Simple. These
worthies figured in Berenger’s Close of Edinburgh some time about the
provostship of the unfortunate Alexander Wilson; and were not only man
and wife by holy Kirk, but a copartnership, insomuch as, Dauvit being
a tailor, she after marriage, and having no children to “fash her,”
became a tailor also, sitting on the same board with him, using the
same goose, yea, pricking the same flea with emulous needle.

Yet our couple were in some respects the most unlike each other in the
world; Robina being a sharp, clear-witted, nay, ingenious woman--Dauvit
a mere big boy. I do not know if I could give the reader a better
explanation of the expression I have used than by referring him to the
notion he might form of Holbein’s picture of his son, whom he quaintly
and humorously painted as a man, but retaining all the features, except
size, of a boy: the chubby cheeks, small snub nose, pinking eyes, and
delicate colours. Nor was Dauvit a big chubby man merely as respected
the body, for he was also little better than chubby in mind; at least
in so far as regards credulity, passiveness, and softness. He had
a marvellous appetite for worldly wonders, the belief being in the
direct ratio of the wonderfulness, and he gave credit to the last thing
he heard, for no other reason than that it was the last thing; one
impression thus effacing another, so that the soft round lump remained
always much the same. All which peculiarities were, it may easily be
supposed, not only known to, but very well appreciated by, his loving,
but perhaps not over-faithful, Binny.

If you keep these things in your mind, you will be able the better
to estimate the value of the facts as I proceed to tell you that one
morning Dauvit was a little later in getting out of bed than was usual
with him, by reason that he had on the previous night been occupied
with a suit of those sacredly-imperative things called in Scotland
“blacks,” that is, mourning. But then the time was not lost; for Robina
was up and active, very busily engaged in preparing breakfast. Not
that Dauvit condescended to take much notice of these domestic duties
of Binny, because he had ample faith not only in her housewifery, but
the wonderful extent of her understanding; only it just happened,
as indeed anything _may_ happen in a world where we do not know why
anything _does_ happen, that as he lay very comfortably under the
welcome pressure of the soft blankets, with his eyes looking as it
were out of a hole, he heard a tap at the door, which tap was just as
like that of the letter-carrier as any two blunts of exactly the same
length could possibly be. Nor did his observation stop here; for he saw
with these same eyes, as if confirming his ears, Binny go to the door
and open it; then came the words of doubtless the said letter-carrier,
“That’s for Dauvit;” and at the same instant a letter was put into his
wife’s hands, and thereafter disappeared at the hole of her pocket,
where there were many things that David knew nothing about.

Strange as this seemed to Mr Tweedie, even the last act of pocketing
would not have appeared to him so very curious if at the moment of
secreting the letter she had not very boldly, and even with a kind of
smile upon her face, looked fully into the open eyes of her husband.
But more still, this sagacious and honest woman immediately thereafter
retired into the inner room, where, no doubt, she made herself
acquainted with the contents of the communication, whatever it might
be, and from which she came again to resume, as she did resume, her
preparations for breakfast just as if nothing had happened beyond what
was common. Of course I need not say that Dauvit was astonished; but
his astonishment was an increasing quantity in proportion to the time
that now passed without her going forward to the bedside and reading
the letter to him, as she had often done before; and if we might be
entitled to wonder why he didn’t at once put the question, “What letter
was that, Binny?” perhaps the answer which would have been given by
David himself might have been that his very wonder prevented him from
asking for an explanation of the wonder--just as miracles shut people’s
mouths at the same moment that they make them open their eyes.

However this might be--and who knows but that David might have a pawky
curiosity to try Binny?--the never a word did he say; but, rising
slowly and quietly, he dressed himself, in that loose way in which
of all tradesmen the tailors most excel, for a reason of which I am
entirely ignorant. He then sat down by the fire; and Binny having
seated herself on the other side, the operation of breakfast began
without a word being said on either part, but with mutual looks, which
on the one side, viz., Robina’s, were very well understood, but on the
other not at all. A piece of pantomime all this which could not last
very long, for the good reason that impatience is the handmaiden of
curiosity; and David at length, in spite of a bit of bread which almost
closed up his mouth, got out the words--

“What letter was that, Binny, which the letter-carrier handed in this
mornin’?”

“Letter! there was nae letter, man,” was the answer of Binny,
accompanied with a look of surprise, which might in vain compete with
the wonder immediately called up in the eyes of her simple husband.

“Did I no see it with my ain een?” was the very natural ejaculation.

“No, you didn’t; you only thought ye saw it,” said the wife; “and thae
twa things have a gey difference between them.”

“What _do_ ye mean, Robina, woman?”

“The merrillygoes!”

“The merrillygoes,” rejoined the wondering David; “my een niver were in
that condition.”

“_You_ may think sae, Dauvit,” rejoined Binny; “but I happen to ken
better. On Wednesday night, when we were in bed, and the moon shining
in at the window, did I no hear you say, ‘Binny, woman, what are ye
doing up at this eery hour?’ It was just about twelve; and upon
lifting my head and looking ower at ye, I saw your een staring out as
gleg as a hawk’s after a sparrow. It had begun then.”

“Ou, I had been dreaming,” said David.

“Dreaming with your een open!”

“That is indeed strange enough,” rejoined David. “Did ye really see my
een open?”

“Did ye ever hear me tell ye a lee, man? Am I no as true as the Bible?
and think ye I dinna ken the strange light o’ the merrillygoes, when I
have seen it in the een o’ my ain father?”

“Is that really true, Binny? I’m beginnin’ to get fear’d. But what o’
your father, lass?”

“Ye may weel ask,” said the wife. “He had been awa’ at Falkirk Tryst
with his ewes, and it was about seven o’clock when he cam’ hame. We
were then in the farm o’ Kimmergame. Weel, he was coming up the lang
loan, and it was gloaming; and just when he was about twenty yards from
his ain door, he saw twa men hurrying along with a coffin a’ studded
with white nails. They were only a yard or twa before him, and the
moment he saw them he stopped till he saw where they were going; and
yet where could they be going but to his ain house; and nae doubt his
wife would be dead, for the lang coffin couldna have fitted any other
person in the house; but he was soon made sure enough, for he saw the
men with the coffin enter into his ain door, and there he stood in a
swither o’ fear; but he was a brave man, and in he went, never stopping
till he got into his ain parlour, where my mother was sitting at her
tea, and nae sooner did she see him than she broke out in a laugh o’
perfect joy at his hamecome. But the never a word he ever said about
the coffin, because he didn’t wish to terrify his wife with evil omens;
and besides, he understood the vision perfectly. And, Dauvit, if ye’re
a wise man ye will submit to the hand o’ God, wha sees fit to bring
thae visitations upon us for some wise end.”

“Very true,” said David, to whom the affair of the letter was rather
much even for _his_ credulity; “but still, Binny, lass, I canna just
come to it that I was deceived.”

“Weel, weel, stick to it, my man, and mak me, your ain wife, a leear.”

“That canna be either,” rejoined David; “and by my faith, I’m at a loss
what to think or what to do; for if it really be that the infliction’s
upon me, how, in the Lord’s name, am I to ken the real thing from the
fause? My head rins right round at the very thought o’t. And then I
fancy there’s nae remedy in the power o’ man.”

“I fear no,” replied Binny. “Ye maun just pray; but I have heard
my father say that it came on him after he had been confined with
an ill-working stomach to the house, and exercise drove it away.
Ye’ve been sitting ower close. Take scouth for a day. Awa’ ower to
Burntisland, and get payment from John Sprunt o’ the three pounds he
owes for his last suit. Stay ower the night. I say nothing about the
jolly boose ye’ll have thegither, but it may drive thae fumes and
fancies out o’ your head. Come ower with the first boat in the morning,
and I will have your breakfast ready for you.”

The prudence of this advice David was not slow to see, though he had,
maugre his simplicity, considerable misgivings about the affair of the
letter; nor did he altogether feel the absolute conviction that he was
under the influence of the foresaid mysterious power. But independently
of the prudence of her counsel, he felt it as a command, and therefore
behoved to obey. For we may as well admit that David might doubt of
the eternal obligation of a certain decalogue by reason of its being
abrogated; but as for the commands of Mrs Robina, they were subject
to no abrogation, and certainly no denial whatever. So David went and
dressed himself in his “second-best”--a particular mentioned here with
an after-view--and having got from the hands of her, who was thus both
wife and medical adviser, a drop of spirits to help him _on_, and the
merrillygoes _off_, he set forth on his journey.

Proceeding down Leith Wynd, he found himself in Leith Walk; but however
active his limbs, thus relieved on so short a warning from “the
board,” and however keen and far-sighted his eyes, as they scanned
all the people he met, he could not shake off certain doubts whether
the individuals he met were in reality creatures of flesh and blood,
or mere visions. The sacred words of Mrs Robina were a kind of winged
beliefs, which, by merely striking on the ear, performed for him what
many a man has much trouble in doing for himself--that is, thinking;
so that upon the whole the tendency of his thoughts was in a great
degree favourable to sadness and terror. The sigh was heaved again and
again; being sometimes for a longer period delayed, as the hope of a
jolly boose with his friend Sprunt held a partial sway in his troubled
mind. But by and by the activity required by his search for a boat, the
getting on board, the novelty of the sail, the undulating movements,
and all the interests which belong to a “traveller by sea and land,”
drove away the cobwebs that hung about the brain; and by the time he
got to Burntisland he was much as he used to be. But, alas, he little
knew that this journey, propitious as it appeared, was not calculated
to produce the wonderful effects expected from it.

No sooner had he landed on the pier than he made straight for the house
of his friend, which stood by the roadside, a little removed from the
village. He saw it in the distance; and quickening his steps, came to
an angle which enabled him to see into Mr Sprunt’s garden; and we may,
considering how much the three pounds, the boose, the fun, the cure was
associated with the figure of that individual, imagine the satisfaction
felt by Mr Tweedie when he saw the true body of John Sprunt in that
very garden, busily engaged, too, in the delightful occupation of
garden-work, and animated, we may add of our own supposition, with a
mind totally oblivious of the three pounds he owed to the Edinburgh
tailor. But well and truly may we speak of the uncertainty of mundane
things. David had only turned away his eyes for an instant, and yet
in that short period, as he found when he again turned his head, the
well-known figure of his old friend, pot-companion, and debtor in
three pounds, had totally disappeared. The thing looked like what
learned people call a phenomenon. How could Sprunt have disappeared
so soon? Where could he have gone to be invisible, where there was no
summer-house to receive him, and where the time did not permit of a
retreat into his own dwelling? David stood, and began to think of the
words of Robina. There could be no doubt that his eyes had been at
fault again; it was not John Sprunt he had seen--merely a lying image.
And so even on the instant the old sadness came over him again, with
more than one long sigh; nor in his depression and simplicity was he
able to bring up any such recondite thing as a thought suggesting the
connexion between John’s disappearance and the fact that he owed Mr
David Tweedie--whom he could have seen in the road--the sum of three
pounds.

In which depressed and surely uncomfortable condition our traveller
proceeded towards the house, more anxious, indeed, to disprove his
terrors than to get his money. He knocked at the door, which, by the
by, was at the end of the house; and his knock was answered by Mrs
Sprunt herself, a woman who could have acted Bellona in an old Greek
piece.

“I am glad John is at hame,” were David’s first words.

“And I would be glad if that were true, Mr Dauvit,” replied she; “but
it just happens no to be true. John went off to Kirkaldy at six o’clock
this morning to try and get some siller that’s due him there.”

“Let me in to sit down,” muttered David, with a kind of choking in his
voice.

And following the good dame into the parlour, Mr Tweedie threw himself
into the arm-chair in a condition of great fear and perturbation.
Having sat mute for a minute or two, probably to the wonderment of the
dame, he began to rub his brow with his handkerchief, as if taking off
a little perspiration could help him in his distress.

“Mrs Sprunt,” said he, “I could have sworn that I saw John working in
the yard.”

Whereat Mrs Sprunt broke out into a loud laugh, which somehow or
another seemed to David as ghostly as his visions; and when she had
finished she added, “Something wrong, Dauvit, with your een.”

“Gudeness gracious and ungracious!” said David. “Is this possible? Can
it really be? Whaur, in the name o’ Heeven, am I to look for a real
flesh-and-blood certainty?”

“And yet ye seem to be sober, Dauvit.”

“As a judge,” replied he. But, after a pause, “Can I be sure even o’
_you_?” he cried, as he started up; the while his eyes rolled in a
manner altogether very unlike the douce quiet character he bore. “Let
me satisfy mysel that you are really Mrs Janet Sprunt in the real body.”

And making a sudden movement, with his arms extended towards the
woman, he tried to grip her; but it was a mere futile effort. Mrs
Sprunt was gone through the open door in an instant, and David was left
alone with another confirmation of his dreaded suspicion, muttering
to himself, “There too, there too,--a’ alike; may the Lord have mercy
upon His afflicted servant! Robina Tweedie, ye were right after a’, and
that letter was a delusion like the rest--a mere eemage--a’ eemages
thegither.”

After which soliloquy he again sat down in the easy-chair, held his
hands to his face, and groaned in the pain of a wounded spirit. But
even in the midst of this solemn conviction that the Lord had laid His
hand upon him, he could see that sitting there could do him no good;
and, rising up, he made for the kitchen. There was no one there; he
tried another room, which he also found empty; and issuing forth from
the unlucky house, he encountered an old witch-looking woman who was
turning the corner, as if going in the direction of another dwelling.

“Did you see Mrs Sprunt even now?” said he.

“No likely,” answered the woman; “when she tauld me this mornin’ she
was going to Petticur. She has a daughter there, ye ken.”

Melancholy intelligence which seemed to have a logical consistency
with the other parts of that day’s remarkable experiences; nor did
David seem to think that anything more was necessary for the entire
satisfaction of even a man considerably sceptical, and then who in
those days doubted the merrillygoes?

“What poor creatures we are!” said he. “I came here for a perfect cure,
and I gae hame with a heavy care.”

And with these words, which were in reality an articulated groan, Mr
David Tweedie made his way back towards the pier, under an apprehension
that as he went along he would meet with some verification of a
suspicion which, having already become a conviction, not only required
no more proof, but was strong enough to battle all opposing facts and
arguments; so he went along with his chin upon his breast, and his
eyes fixed upon the ground, as if he were afraid to trust them with a
survey of living beings, lest they might cheat him as they had already
done. It was about half-past twelve when he got to the boat; and he was
further disconcerted by finding that the wind, which had brought him
so cleverly over, would repay itself, like over-generous givers, who
take back by one hand what they give by the other. And so it turned
out; for he was fully two hours on the passage, all of which time
was occupied by a reverie as to the extraordinary calamity that had
befallen him. And how much more dreary his cogitations as he thought
of the increased unhappiness of Robina, when she ascertained not only
the failure of getting payment of his debt, but the total wreck of her
means of cure!

At length he got to Leith pier; but his landing gave him no pleasure:
he was still haunted with the notion that he would encounter more
mischances; and he hurried up Leith Walk, passing old friends whom he
was afraid to speak to. Arrived at the foot of Leith Wynd, he made a
detour which brought him to the foot of Halkerston’s Wynd, up which he
ascended, debouching into the High Street. And here our story becomes
so incredible, that we are almost afraid to trust our faithful pen to
write what David Tweedie saw on his emerging from the entry. There,
coming up the High Street, was Mrs Robina Tweedie herself, marching
along steadily, dressed in David’s best suit. He stood and stared with
goggle eyes, as if he felt some strange pleasure in the fascination.
The vision was so concrete, that he could identify his own green coat
made by his own artistic fingers. There were the white metal buttons,
the broadest he could get in the whole city--nay, one of them on the
back had been scarcely a match, and he recognised the defect; his
knee-breeches too, so easily detected by their having been made out of
a large remnant of a colour (purple) whereof there was not another bit
either to be bought or “cabbaged,”--nay, the very brass knee-buckles of
which he was so proud; the “rig-and-fur” stockings of dark brown; the
shoe-buckles furbished up the last Sunday; the square hat he had bought
from Pringle; and, to crown all, his walking-stick with the ivory top.
So perfect indeed was the “get-up” of his lying eyes, that, if he
had not been under the saddening impression of his great visitation,
he would have been well amused by the wonderful delusion. Even as it
was, he could not help following the phantom, as it went so proudly
and jantily along the street. And what was still more extraordinary,
he saw Mucklewham, the city guardsman, meet her and speak to her in
a private kind of way, and then go away with her. But David had a
trace of sense in his soft nature. He saw that it was vain as well
as hurtful to gratify what was so clearly a delusion; it would only
deepen the false images in eyes already sufficiently “glamoured;” and
so he stopped suddenly short and let them go--that is, he would cease
_to look_,--and they, the visions, would cease _to be_. In all which
how little did he know that he was prefiguring a philosophy which was
some time afterwards to become so famous! Nay, are we not all under the
merrillygoes in this world of phantoms?

  “You say you see the things that be:
  I say you only think you see.
  Not even that. It seems to me
  You only think you think you see.
  Then thinking weaves so many a lie,
  Methinks this world is ‘all my eye.’”

But even in his grief and sacred fear he could not help saying to
himself, “Gude Lord! if that eemage werena frightfu’, would it no be
funny? And what will Robina say? Nae doubt she is at this very moment
sitting at her tea in Berenger’s Close, thinking upon my calamity.
What _will_ she say when I tell her that I saw her in the High Street
dressed in my Sunday suit, walking just as if she were Provost Wilson
himsel? I wouldna wonder if she should get into ane o’ her laughing
fits, even in very spite o’ her grief for the awful condition of her
loving husband. At any rate, it’s time I were hame, when I canna tell
what I am to see next, nor can even say which end o’ me is uppermost.”

Nor scarcely had he finished his characteristic soliloquy, when a
hand was laid on his shoulder. It was that of the corporal; but how
was David to know that? Why, he felt Bill’s hand; and to make things
more certain, he even laid his own hand upon the solid shoulder of the
sturdy city guardsman; adding, for still greater proof--

“Did you meet and speak to any one up the street there?”

“The niver a living soul,” said the corporal, “as I’m a sinner; but
come along, man, to the Prophet Amos’s,” (a well-known tavern in
the Canongate,) “and let us have a jolly jug, for I’m to be on duty
to-night, and need something to cheer me up; and the colour of ale will
sit better on your cheeks when you go home to Robina than that saffron.
Are you well enough, David? I think I might as well ask the question of
a half-hanged dog.”

“Half or hale hanged,” replied David, as he eyed his friend
suspiciously, “I canna be the waur o’ a jug o’ ale.”

An answer which was perhaps the result of sheer despair, for the
conviction of the “real unreality” of what he had seen was now so
much beyond doubt that he began to submit to it as a doom; and what
is irremediable becomes, like death, to be bearable, nay, even
accommodating to the routine of life; and so the two jogged along till
they came to the Prophet’s, where they sat down to their liquor and,
we may add, loquacity, of which latter Mucklewham was so profuse, that
any other less simple person than David might have thought that the
guardsman wanted to speak against time. But David suspected nothing,
and he was the more inclined to be patient that his friend had promised
to pay the score.

“And when saw ye Robina?” said David.

“Not for a good round year, my bairn,” said the big corporal.

“Gude Lord, did ye no see her and speak to her even this day?”

Whereupon the big guardsman laughed a horse (guardsman’s) laugh;
and pointing his finger to his eye he twirled the same, that is the
finger, merrily round. A movement which David too well understood; and
after heaving a deep sigh, he took a deep pull at the ale, as if in a
paroxysm of despair.

And so they drank on, till David having risen and left the room for a
breath of fresh air, found on his return that his generous friend had
vanished. Very wonderful, no doubt. But, then, had he not taken his jug
with him?--no doubt to get it replenished--and he would return with a
filled tankard. Vain expectation! Mucklewham was only another Sprunt,
another lie of the visual sense. Did David Tweedie really need this
new proof? David knew he didn’t; neither did he require the additional
certainty of his calamity by having to pay only for his own “shot.” The
Prophet did not ask for more, nor did he think it necessary to say why;
perhaps he would make the corporal pay his own share afterwards. The
whole thing was as clear as noon: David had been drinking with one who
had no stomach wherein to put his liquor, and for the good reason that
he had no body to hold that stomach.

“Waur than the case o’ the letter, or Sprunt, (hiccup,) or Robina
dressed in my claes,” said he lugubriously, “for I only _saw_ them, but
I handled the corporal, sat with him, drank with him, heard him speak;
yet baith he and the pewter jug were off in a moment, and I hae paid
(hic) only for ae man’s drink. But is it no a’ a dream thegither? I
wouldna wonder I am at this very moment in my bed wi’ Robina lying at
my back.”

And rising up, he discovered that he was not very well able to keep
his legs, the more by reason that he had poured the ale into an empty
stomach; there was, besides, a new confusion in his brain, as if that
organ had not already enough to do with any small powers of maintaining
itself in equilibrium which it possessed. But he behoved to get
home; and to Berenger’s Close he accordingly went, making sure as he
progressed of at least one truth in nature, amidst all the dubieties
and delusions of that most eventful day: that the shortest way between
two points is the deflecting one. And what was Binny about when he
entered his own house? Working the button-holes of a vest which had
been left by David unfinished. No sooner did she see David staggering
in than she threw the work aside.

“Hame already? and in that state too!” she cried. “You must have been
seeing strange ferlies in the High Street, while I was sitting here
busy at my wark.”

“Strange enough, lass; but if you can tell me whether or no I am Dauvit
Tweedie, your lawfu’ husband or the Prophet Moses, or the Apostle
Aaron, or (hic) the disciple Deuteronomy, or the deevil, it’s mair than
I can.”

Whereupon David dropt his uncertain body in a chair, doubting perhaps
if even the chair was really a chair.

“And it wasna just enough,” rejoined she, “that you had an attack of
the merrillygoes, but you must add pints o’ ale to make your poor wits
mair confounded.”

A remark which Robina thought herself entitled to make, irrespective of
the question which for a hundred years has been disputed, viz., whether
she had sent the corporal to take David to Prophet Amos’s and fill him
drunk with ale, and then shirk the score?

“But haste ye to bed, my man,” she added, “that’s the place for you,
where you may snore awa’ the fumes o’ Prophet Amos’s ale, and the
whimwhams o’ your addled brain.”

An advice which David took kindly, though he did not need it; for,
educated as he may be said to have been by the clever Robina, he was
fortunately one of those favoured beings pointed at in the wise saying
that the power of education is seldom effectual except in those happy
cases where it is superfluous. So it was the ale that sent him to bed
and to sleep as well--a condition into which he sunk very soon. And it
was kindly granted to him, insomuch as it was a kind of recompense for
what he had suffered during that day of wonders: it saved him from the
possibility of hearing a conversation in the other room between Robina
and the corporal, in the course of which it was asked and answered
whether David had recognised Robina in her male decorations; and
whether he had any suspicions as to the true character of the deep plot
they were engaged in working out.

What further took place in the house of Mr Tweedie that night we have
not been able, notwithstanding adequate inquiry, to ascertain; but of
this important fact we are well assured, that next morning David awoke
in a much improved condition. To account for this we must remember his
peculiar nature, for to him “the yesterday,” whatever yesterday it
might be, was always a _dies non_; it had done its duty and was gone,
and it had no business here any more than an impudent fellow who tries
to live too long after the world is sick of him. Indeed, we know that
he ate such a breakfast, and with such satisfaction, that no ideas of
a yesterday had any chance of resisting the feelings of the moment; and
once gone, they had too much difficulty to get into the dark chamber
again to think of trying it. He was “on the board” by ten o’clock. For
he had work to do, and as Robina’s purpose was in the meantime served,
she said no more of the merrillygoes. She had perhaps something else
to do; for shortly after eleven she went out, perhaps to report to
the corporal the sequel to that which he already knew. But whatever
her object, her absence was not destined to be so fruitful of good to
her as her presence wherever she might go; for it so happened that as
David was sitting working, and sometimes with his face overcast with
a passing terror of a return of his calamity, he found he required a
piece of cloth of a size and colour whereof there were some specimens
in an old trunk. To that repository of cabbage, as it is vulgarly
called, he went; and in rummaging through the piebald contents he
came upon a parcel in a corner. On opening it, he found to his great
wonderment no fewer than a hundred guineas of pure gold. The rays from
the shiny pieces seemed to enter his eyes like spikes, and fix the
balls in the sockets; if he felt a kind of fascination yesterday as he
looked at his wife in male attire, though a mere vision, he experienced
the influence now even more, however doubtful he was of the reality of
the glittering objects. He seized, he clutched them, he shut his eyes,
and opened them again as he opened his hands; they did _not_ disappear;
but then Robina herself might appear, and under this apprehension,
which put to flight his doubts, he carried them off, and secreted
them in a private drawer of which he had the key; whereupon he betook
himself again to the board. By and by Robina returned; but the never
a word David said of the guineas, because he had still doubts of the
veracity of his eyes.

And so the day passed without anything occurring to suggest either
inquiry or answer. During the night David slept so soundly that he was
even oblivious of his prize; and it was not till eleven next forenoon,
when his wife went out, that he ventured to look into the drawer; but
now the terrible truth was revealed to him: the guineas were gone, and
he had been again under delusion. The merrillygoes once more! and how
was he to admit the fact to Robina, after his attempted appropriation!

But, happily, there was no necessity for admitting his own shame, for
about four o’clock John Jardine the letter-carrier called and told
him that his wife had eloped with the corporal. The intelligence was
no doubt very dreadful to David, who loved his wife so dearly that
he could have subscribed to the saying “that the husband will always
be deceived when the wife condescends to dissemble;” but Mrs Robina
Tweedie did not so condescend; and David now began to see certain
things and to recollect certain circumstances which, when put together,
appeared even to his mind more strange than the merrillygoes. And his
eyes were opened still further by a letter from Kirkcudbright from a Mr
Gordon, wishing to be informed why he had not acknowledged the receipt
of the hundred guineas left him by his uncle, and which had been sent
in a prior letter in the form of a draft on the Bank of Scotland. Mr
David Tweedie now went to the bank, and was told that the money had
been paid to a man in a green coat and white metal buttons, square hat,
and walking-stick, who represented himself as David Tweedie.

Our story, it will be seen, has pretty nearly explained itself; yet
something remains to be told. A whole year elapsed, when one morning
Mrs Robina Tweedie appeared before honest David, with a lugubrious face
and a lugubrious tale, to the effect that although she had been tempted
to run away with the corporal, she had almost immediately left him--a
pure, bright, unsullied wife; but during all this intermediate time
she had felt so ashamed and conscience-stricken, that she could not
return and ask forgiveness. All which David heard, and to all which he
answered--

“Robina--nae mair Tweedie, lass--ye ken I was afflicted with a strange
calamity when ye left me. I thought I saw what wasna to be seen. It
comes aye back upon me now and then; and I ken it’s on me this mornin’.
I may think I see you there standin’ before me, even as I saw you in
my broad-tailed coat that day in the High Street; but I ken it’s a’
a delusion. In fact, my dear Robina, _I dinna see you, I dinna even
feel your body_,” (pushing her out by the cuff of the neck;) “the
merrillygoes, lass! the merrillygoes!”

And David shut the door on the ejected Robina--thereafter living a very
quiet and comparatively happy life, free from all glamour or any other
affection of the eyes, and seeing just as other people see. Yea, with
his old friend Sprunt and his wife he had many a joke on the subject,
forgiving John for running away that morning to shirk his creditor,
as well as Mrs Janet for being terrified out of the house by the wild
rolling eyes of the unhappy David.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of the Six Toes.


A man who makes a will generally knows pretty well the person to whom
he leaves a legacy, but it does not follow that other people are to
have the same enlightenment as to the identity of the legatee. I make
the remark in reference to a common story connected with the will of
honest Andrew Gebbie, who officiated once as a ruling elder in the
Church of Trinity College, Edinburgh, and was supposed to have done so
much good to the people by his prayers, exhortations and psalm-singing,
that it was utterly unnecessary for his getting to heaven, where he had
sent so many others, that he should bequeath a single plack or bawbee
to the poor when he died. Yet whether it was that the good man Andrew
determined to make sure work of his salvation, or that he had any less
ambitious object in view, certain it is that some time before he died
he made a will by his own hand, and without the help of a man of the
law, in spite of the Scotch adage--

  “Who saves a fee and writes his will
  Is friendly to the lawyers still;
  For these take all the will contains,
  And give the heir all that remains.”

And by this said will honest Andrew bequeathed the sum of three hundred
pounds sterling money to “Mistress Helen Grey, residing in that street
of the old town called Leith Wynd,” without any further identification
or particularisation whatsoever, nor did he say a single word about the
cause of making this somewhat generous bequest, or anything about the
merits or services of the legatee. A strange circumstance, seeing that
the individual being a “Nelly Grey” had long been a favourite of the
poets, (and, therefore, rather indefinite,) as she indeed still figures
in more than one very popular song, wherein she is even called bonny
Nelly Grey.

Then, to keep all matters in harmony, he appointed three clergymen--the
minister of his own church, the minister of the Tolbooth, and the
minister of the Tron--as his executors for carrying his said will into
execution, probably thinking that Nelly Grey’s three hundred, and her
soul to boot, could not be in better hands than those of such godly
men. So, after living three weeks longer in a very bad world, the
worthy testator was gathered to his fathers, and it might perhaps have
been as well that his said will had been gathered along with him,--as
indeed happened in a recent case, where a sensible man, probably in
fear of the lawyers, got his will placed in the same coffin with
him,--though no doubt he forgot that worms, if not moths, do corrupt
there also, and sometimes thieves, in the shape of body-snatchers, do
break through and steal. Passing all which we proceed to say that the
executors entered upon their duties. As regards the other legatees
they found no difficulty whatever, most probably because legatees are
a kind of persons who are seldom out of the way when they are wanted.
They accordingly made their appearance, and without a smile, which
would have been unbecoming, got payment of their legacies. But as
for this Helen Grey, with so large a sum standing at her credit, she
made no token of any kind, nor did any of the relations know aught
concerning her, though they wondered exceedingly who she could be, and
how she came to be in so strange a place as their kinsman’s testament.
Not that the three executors, the ministers, shared very deeply in
this wondering, because they knew that their elder, honest Andrew,
was a good and godly man, and had had good and godly, and therefore
sufficient reasons, (probably in the poverty and piety of Helen,) for
doing what he had done.

If indeed these gentlemen wondered at all, it was simply that any poor
person living in such a place as Leith Wynd should be so regardless
of money, as to fail to make her appearance among the grave and happy
legatees. The question, who can she be, passed from the one to the
other like a bad shilling. Not one of them could answer. Father Tron,
and Father Tolbooth, and Father Trinity, were all at fault; the noses
of their ingenuity could not smell out the object of their wish. But
then they had been trusting so far as yet to the relatives, and had not
made personal inquiry in Leith Wynd, which, if they had been men of
business, they would have done at once.

“Oh,” said Father Trinity at length, “I think I have it now when I
recollect there was an honest woman of that name who was a member of
my congregation some years ago, and, if I am not mistaken, she was in
honest Andrew Gebbie’s visiting district, and he took an interest in
her soul.”

“The thing is patent,” rejoined Father Tron. “Our lamented elder hath
done this good thing out of the holy charity that cometh of piety.”

“And a most beautiful example of the fruits of godliness,” added Father
Tolbooth.

“Beautiful indeed!” said Trinity. “For we have here to keep in view
that Elder Andrew had many poor friends, but he hath chosen to prefer
the relationship of the spirit to that of mere earthly connexion. And
his reward will verily be reaped in heaven.”

“We must give the good man a paragraph in the _Mercury_,” resumed
Father Tolbooth. “And now, brother of Trinity, it will be for you to
find Helen Grey out, and carry to her the glad tidings.”

“A pleasant commission,” rejoined Father Trinity, as he rose to depart.

And taking his way to Leith Wynd, he soon reached that celebrated
street, nor was it long till he passed “The Happy Land,” that dreaded
den of burglars, thieves, and profligate women, which the Scotch,
according to their peculiar humour, had so named. That large building
he behoved to pass with a sigh as the great forlorn hope of the city,
and coming to some of the brokers whose shops were farther down, he
procured some information which sent him up a dark close, to the end
of which having got, he ascended to a garret in a back tenement, and,
knocking at the door, was answered by an aged woman.

“Does Helen Grey live here?”

“Ay, sir!” replied she. “If ye ca’ living the breathing awa o’ the
breath o’ life. It’s a sad thing when auld age and poverty come
thegither.”

“An old saying, Helen,” replied the father. “Yet there is a third one
which sanctifieth the other two, and bringeth all into harmony, peace,
and love, and that is religion. But do you not know your old minister?”

“Brawly, brawly, sir,” replied she; “but the truth is, I didna like to
speak first; and now, sir, I’m as proud as if I had got a fortune.”

“And so perhaps you have,” added the father. “But come, sit down. I’ve
got something to say;” and having seated himself he continued. “Was
Maister Andrew Gebbie, our worthy elder, in the habit of visiting you?”

“Indeed, and he did aince or twice come and see me; but never mair,”
replied she. “Yet he was sae kind as to bring me the last time this
book o’ psalms and paraphrases, and there’s some writing in’t which I
couldna read.”

“Let me see it,” he said.

And the woman having handed him the book--

“To Mrs Janet Grey,” said the minister, as he read the inscription.

“A mistake, for my name is Helen,” said she. “But it was weel meant in
Mr Gebbie, and it’s a’ the same.”

“A staff to help her on to the happy land,” continued the reverend
doctor, reading.

“No ‘The Happy Land’ near bye?” interjected Helen.

“Not likely,” continued the doctor with a smile. “But I have good news
for you, Helen.”

“Good news for me!” said the woman. “That must come frae an airth no
within the four quarters o’ the earthly compass. I thought a’ gude news
for _me_ had ta’en wings, and floun awa to the young and the happy.”

“It seems not,” said he; “for Elder Andrew has left you a legacy of
three hundred pounds.”

“Stop, stop, sir!” ejaculated the frightened legatee. “It canna be, and
though it was sae, I couldna bear the grandeur. It would put out the
sma’ spark o’ life that’s left in my auld heart.”

“No, no!” said he. “It is only an earthly inheritance, Helen, to keep
you in ease and comfort in your declining years, till you succeed to
that inheritance which knoweth no decay, and fadeth not away.”

“But is it really possible, good sir?” she continued, a little
reconciled to that whereunto there is a pretty natural predisposition
in human nature. “But I havena blessed Elder Andrew yet. May the Lord
receive Andrew Gebbie’s soul into endless glory!”

“Amen!” said the reverend doctor. “I will speak of this again to you,
Helen.”

And with these words he left the still confused woman, who would very
likely still feel a difficulty in comprehending the length and breadth
of the goodness of a man who had seen her only a few times, and given
her a psalm-book, and called her Janet in place of Helen--a mistake he
must have rectified before he made his will.

Next day the reverend doctor of Trinity had another meeting in the
office of the law-agent to the trust, Mr George Crawford, whereat he
recounted how he had found out the legatee; how strange it was that
the poor woman was entirely ignorant of her good fortune; how grateful
she was; and, above all, how strange that the saintly elder had only
seen her a few times, and knew so little of her that he had made
the foresaid mistake in her name. All which did seem strange to the
brethren, not any one of whom would even have thought of giving more
than perhaps a pound to such a person. But as the motives of men are
hidden from the eyes of their fellows, and are indeed like the skins of
onions, placed one above another, so they considered that all they had
to do was to walk by the will.

“We have no alternative,” said Father Tron; “nor should we wish any,
seeing that the money could not be better applied; for has not the son
of Sirach said, ‘Give unto a godly man, and not unto a sinner.’”

“And,” added Tolbooth, “we are also commanded to give of our substance
to the poor, and ‘do well unto those that are lowly.’”

“Yes,” said Father Trinity. “Mr Gebbie’s object was clear enough; it
was sufficient for him that the woman was poor; therein lay his reward;
and I presume we have nothing to do but to authorise Mr Crawford to pay
the money.”

“Which I will do, gentlemen,” said the writer, “if you authorise me;
but I frankly confess to you that I am not altogether satisfied,
because I knew Mr Andrew Gebbie intimately, and, godly as he was, I can
hardly think he was the man to make a comparative stranger the medium
of the accumulation of compound interest to be got back in heaven.
Besides, Helen Grey is so common a name, that I believe I could get
several in Edinburgh; and if we were to pay to the wrong woman, you
might be bound to refund out of your own stipends, which would not be a
very pleasant thing.”

A speech which, touching the word stipend, brought a very grave look
into the faces of the brethren.

“A most serious, yea, a momentous consideration,” said Tron, followed
by the two others.

Nor had the groan got time to die away when the door opened, and there
stood before them a woman of somewhere about forty, a little shabby
in her apparel, though with a decayed flush of gaudy colour in it here
and there; somewhat blowsy too--the tendency to the tint of the peony
being more evident about the region of the nose, where there was a spot
or two very clearly predisposed to the sending forth, under favourable
circumstances, of a pimple; rather bold-looking in addition, even in
presence of holy men who wielded the Calvinistic thunders of the day,
and followed them up with the refreshing showers of grace and love.

“I understand,” said she, “that Elder Andrew Gebbie has left me a
legacy o’ three hundred pounds, and I will thank you for the siller.”

On hearing which the three fathers looked at each other in amazement,
and it was clear they did not like the appearance of the new claimant.

“Who are you?” said Trinity.

“Helen Grey!” replied she. “I live in Leith Wynd. Mr Andrew Gebbie and
me were man and wife.”

“Where are your marriage lines?” asked Tron.

“I hae nane,” replied she. “It was a marriage by giving and taking
between ourselves--a gude marriage by the law.”

“And no witnesses?” said Tron.

“The deil ane but the Lord.”

“Wh-e-w!” whistled Father Tron, not audibly, only as it were within the
mouth.

“It is very true,” said Father Trinity, as he looked askance at the
claimant, and contrasted her in his mind with the other Nelly, who he
was satisfied was the real Nelly Pure, “that Mr Andrew Gebbie left that
sum of money to a certain Helen Grey, but we have no evidence to show
that you are the right woman.”

“The right woman!” ejaculated she, with a bold laugh; “and how could I
be the wrong ane, when I cut Andrew Gebbie’s corns for ten years?”

“Oh, a chiropodist!” said Father Tron.

“I’m nae corn-doctor, sir,” replied she, with something like offended
pride: “I never cut another man’s corns in my life.”

“We are nearly getting into that lightness of speech which betokeneth
vanity,” said another of the brethren. “It is a serious matter; and we
must require of you, Mrs Grey--seeing that the marriage cannot, even
by your own statement, be taken into account, for want of evidence--to
prove that you were upon such terms of friendship with Mr Gebbie as to
make it probable that he would leave you this large sum of money.”

“Friendship!” cried the woman again. “Ay, for ten years, and wha can
tell where the flee may stang? It was nae mair than he should have
dune. I am Helen Grey, and I insist upon my rights.”

“But,” said Father Trinity, “there is another Helen Grey in Leith Wynd,
with whom Mr Gebbie was acquainted, and to whom he made a present of a
psalm-book.”

“And did he no gie me a psalm-book too!” quoth the woman. “I have it at
hame, and you are welcome to see my name on’t written by the elder’s
ain hand. But did this second Helen Grey cut the good elder’s corns for
ten lang years, I wonder? Tell me that, gentlemen, and I’ll tell you
something mair that will make your ears ring as they never did at a
psalm.”

“Still this irreverend nonsense about corns: woman, are you mad?”
said Tron. “Give us the names of respectable people who knew of this
asserted friendship between you and the deceased elder.”

“The deil ane kent o’t, sir, but ourselves!” was the sharp answer of
the woman. “And if it comes to that, I can prove naething; but I tell
you there’s mair in the corns than ye wot.”

“Oh! she wants to prove the _footing_ she was on with Mr Gebbie,”
punned Mr Crawford with a laugh, and the grave brethren could not
help joining in what Tron called a fine example of the figure called
_paronomasia_.

“That’s just it,” said the woman. “I will prove that I knew the length
o’ his big tae, and may be mair.”

“And what more?” asked Father Tron.

“That Mr Gebbie had six toes on his left foot!” answered she.

“And what of that?” inquired the agent, as he pricked up his ears at
what might turn out a more special means of knowledge than they were
dreaming of.

“A great deal,” continued the woman. “Sae muckle that I need nae mair,
for be it kenned to ye that Mr Gebbie was aye ashamed o’ what he
thought a deformity, and concealed it from a’ living mortals except
me. If ye’ll prove that there’s anither person in a’ Edinburgh, in
Scotland, or in the hail world, wha kens that Elder Andrew had six toes
on his left foot, I’ll give up a’ right to the three hundred pounds!”

“So there is something in the corns after all,” whispered Mr Crawford
to Trinity, and the others hearing the remark began to think, and
think, and look at each other, as if they felt that the woman had
fairly shut them up to a test of her truthfulness easily applied. So
telling her to call back next day at the same hour, they requested
her to leave them. And after she was gone, the four gentlemen began
gradually to relax from their gravity as they saw the ingenuity of the
woman, for it was quite apparent that if it should turn out that no
one--servant, relative, or doctor--could tell this wonderful fact about
the six toes of their own knowledge, however derived, and that this
Helen Grey was the sole confidential custodier thereof--the conclusion
was all but certain that she knew it by being intrusted with the
cutting of the holy man’s corns, as she had asserted. And a confidence
of this kind, (setting aside the irregular marriage,) implied a
friendship so close as to justify the legacy. What in the meantime
remained to be done was for the agent to see any persons connected with
the elder’s household who were likely to know the fact, and being an
honourable man he behoved to do this without what is called a leading
question.

Accordingly, that same afternoon Mr Crawford busied himself to the
effect of having seen the good elder’s housekeeper, as well as the
doctor who had attended him upon his last illness, with perhaps a dozen
of other likely people, such as the other legatees and relations, all
of whom were entirely ignorant of the fact set forth by the woman,
viz., that Mr Gebbie had six toes on his left foot. And next day the
trustees met again, when Mr Crawford told them, before touching on the
corns, that an agent had called upon him from the other Helen first
seen, demanding payment to her. He then told the trustees the result
of his inquiries--that not a single person of all he had seen knew
anything of the abnormal foot. At this the clergymen wondered more and
more, and how long they might have sat there and wondered it might have
been difficult to say, had it not been for an ingenious idea started by
Tron, and suggested by the old story about King Charles and the fish in
the bucket of water.

“The woman is laughing at us,” said he, “and we are inquiring whether
certain people knew a fact without making ourselves acquainted with
the prior fact, whether that prior fact had ever any existence except
in the brain of this bad woman, whose evidence goes to traduce the
character of a holy elder of the Church of Scotland.”

The brethren again laughed at this ingenious discovery of Father
Tron’s, and thereupon began to veer round in favour of good Nelly
_prima_. In a few minutes more entered Blowsabel again, holding in
her hand a psalm-book with some words of an inscription on it in the
handwriting of the elder, but subscribed “a friend,” whereas, as
the reader may recollect, the inscription in the book given to the
first Helen, (with the misnomer of Janet,) was in the name of Andrew
Gebbie--a fact rather in favour of Nelly _secunda_, insomuch as it
harmonised with her statement that the friendship between the elder
and her had been kept a secret known only to themselves.

“That goes for what it’s worth,” said she, as she received back the
book. “And now,” she continued, addressing Mr Crawford, “you can tell
me whether you were able to find, within the hail o’ Edinburgh, a
single person who knew that Elder Andrew had six taes on his left foot.”

“I have found no one,” was the answer, “for the good reason that Andrew
Gebbie had no more toes on his left foot than you yourself have on
yours.”

Whereupon Helen _secunda_ burst out into a laugh. After which, said
she, “I will prove it, as sure as I am a living woman!”

“The man is dead and buried!” replied Mr Crawford, with a voice of
triumph.

“That makes nae difference,” said she; “unless it be that the worms
have eaten awa the sixth tae; and, by my faith, I’ll see to it!”

And with these words she went away, leaving the trustees in as great a
difficulty as ever. Nor had she been long gone when a man of the name
of Marshall, the procurator who had taken up the case of the first
Helen, entered and said, “he had got evidence to show that a neighbour,
who had been present at the last interview between the elder and his
client, had heard the worthy man declare, that he had been moved to
pity by her age and poverty, and had promised to do something for her,
to enable her to pass her remaining years in comfort.”

“But,” said the agent, “there is, I am sorry to say, another Helen in
the field; and you must drive her off before we can pay your client the
money.”

“And I know who she is,” was the answer. “That woman’s word is not
to be relied upon; for she is what she is.” And then he added, “I am
determined to see justice done to my client--who, at least, is an
honest woman.”

“Now you see, gentlemen,” said Mr Crawford, after the first Helen’s
agent had departed--“you see how this extraordinary affair stands. The
two claimants are determined to fight it out: so that, if you pay the
money to the good woman, you will, as I said before, run a risk of
being obliged to pay the other one afterwards out of your stipends.”

“Our stipends are the holy tenths, set apart to the work of the Lord
from the beginning of the world,” answered the brethren, “and cannot be
touched, except by sacrilegious hands!”

“Then,” continued the agent, “there is only one thing we can do;
and that is, to throw the case into court by what we call a
multiplepoinding, and let the claimants fight against each other.”

A proposition this to which the trustees felt themselves bound to
agree, though with very much reluctance; for they saw that the case
would become public, and there would be ill-disposed people that would
be inclined to put a false construction upon the motives of the worthy
elder of Trinity. But then, to comfort them, they felt assured that the
story of the toes was a pure invention; and the elder being buried,
there was no possibility of proving the same.

Whereupon the meeting separated. Next day Mr Crawford commenced his
law proceedings; and in due time, a record having been prepared, the
advocates behoved to plead the causes of their respective clients.

Then stood up Mr Anderson, the advocate of the first Helen, and said:--

“Your lordships must see that--if you lay out of view as a mere
invention, which it is, the story of the six toes--the preponderance
of the evidence lies with my client. There is a psalm-book in each
case; but mine has the name of the testator to the inscription: and you
have, in addition, the testimony of one respectable person who heard Mr
Gebbie declare his intention to enable this poor old woman to live. On
the other side you have no evidence whatever that the elder ever set
his foot--corns or no corns--on the floor of the Helen _secunda_. There
was no such _footing_ of intimacy as that contended for on the other
side; and that I am justified in calling the story of the six toes
an invention will appear when I say that, according to the authority
of learned men, a _lusus naturæ_ of this kind does not occur once in
ten thousand births: so that it is ten thousand to one against the
assumption. In addition, there is the character of the deceased, whose
whole life and conversation are against the presumption that he would
go to Leith Wynd, and get a woman of doubtful character to operate upon
a foot of which he is said to have been ashamed. For all which reasons
I claim the three hundred pounds for my client.”

Then stood up Mr Sharp, the advocate of the second Helen, and said:--

“It is no wonder at all why my learned friend has a difficulty about
his _locus standi_, seeing he is so delicate about the feet. I feel
no delicacy on that fundamental point. And it is because my corns of
legal right and justice are pared that I stand here with so much ease,
and assert that Mr Gebbie having imparted to my client a secret which
he never communicated to living mortal besides, that secret could
only have been the result of an intimacy and confidence sufficient to
justify this legacy in her favour of three hundred pounds. My friend
says, that there are many chances against such a freak of nature as
six toes. That is true. But he confounds the thing with the assertion
of the thing. And were there not a presumption in favour of a person
speaking the truth rather than falsehood, what would become of that
testimony which is the foundation of our holy religion, not less than
of the decisions of our courts of justice? But it is in the power of
this court to ascertain the truth of my assertion. The body of the
worthy elder can be exhumed; and if it shall appear that it has six
toes on the left foot, the presumption of the intimacy of friendship
which will justify the legacy is complete. On the other side there is
no such presumption. The elder only visited the first Helen once or
twice, and what was to induce him to leave her so large a sum to the
deprivation of his poor relations?”

Then the President spoke as follows:--

“It appears to the Court that, in this very extraordinary case, we
never can get at the truth without testing, by proof, the statement
made by the second Helen in regard to the six toes, because if it is
really a fact that the testator carried this number on his left foot,
and by parity that that number carried him, it is impossible to get
quit of the presumption that the fact was communicated confidentially
when the operation of paring was resorted to; and as confidence
implies friendship, and friendship intimacy, we must assume that there
must have been such an amount of mutual liking on the part of these
individuals as would justify the legacy which is the subject-matter
of this multiplepoinding. The Court will therefore issue an order
for the exhumation of the body of Andrew Gebbie, for the purpose of
ascertaining whether the testator’s foot was formed in the manner
asserted by the claimant.”

The commission was accordingly issued. The body of the elder was
examined as it lay in the coffin, and the result of the examination, as
stated in the report, was: “That the left foot was furnished with six
toes, the sixth or supernumerary one being much smaller than the one
next to it. It also appeared that the toes of this foot were supplied
with a number of very hard corns, which bore the marks of having been
often pared by some very careful hand.”

Whereupon the case was again taken up, when judgment was given for the
second Helen, who was thus remarkably well paid for her attention to
the corns of the worthy elder. When the decision was reported to the
reverend executors, Father Tron shook his head with great gravity,
Tolbooth did the same, and so did Trinity: nay, they all shook their
heads at the same time: but what they intended to signify thereby was
never known, for the reason that it was never declared.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of Mysie Craig.


In detailing the curious circumstances of the following story, I am
again only reporting a real law case to be found in the Court of
Session Records, the turning-point of which was as invisible to the
judges as to the parties themselves--that is, until the end came; a
circumstance again which made the case a kind of developed romance. But
as an end implies a beginning, and the one is certainly as necessary as
the other, we request you to accompany us--taking care of your feet--up
the narrow spiral staircase of a tenement called Corbet’s Land, in
the same old town where so many wonderful things in the complicated
drama--or dream, if you are a Marphurius--of human life have occurred.
Up which spiral stair having got by the help of our hands, almost
as indispensable as that of the feet--we find ourselves in a little
human dovecot of two small rooms, occupied by two persons not unlike,
in many respects, two doves--Widow Craig and her daughter, called
May, euphuised by the Scotch into Mysie. The chief respects in which
they might be likened, without much stress, to the harmless creatures
we have mentioned, were their love for each other, together with
their total inoffensiveness as regarded the outside world; and we are
delighted to say this, for we see so many of the multitudinous sides of
human nature dark and depraved, that we are apt to think there is no
bright side at all. Nor shall we let slip the opportunity of saying,
at the risk of being considered very simple, that of all the gifts of
felicity bestowed, as the Pagan Homer tells, upon mankind by the gods,
no one is so perfect and beautiful as the love that exists between a
good mother and a good daughter.

For so much we may be safe by having recourse to instinct, which is
deeper than any secondary causes we poor mortals can see. But beyond
this, there were special reasons tending to this same result of mutual
affection, which come more within the scope of our observation. In
explanation of which we may say that the mother, having something in
her power during her husband’s life, had foreseen the advantages of
using it in the instruction of her quick and intelligent daughter
in an art of far more importance then than now--that of artistic
needlework. Nay, of so much importance was this beautiful art, and
to such perfection was it brought at a time when a lady’s petticoat,
embroidered by the hand, with its profuse imitations of natural
objects, flowers, and birds, and strange devices, would often cost
twenty pounds Scots, that a sight of one of those operose achievements
of genius would make us blush for our time and the labours of our
women. Nor was the perfection in this ornamental industry a new thing,
for the daughters of the Pictish kings confined in the castle were
adepts in it; neither was it left altogether to paid sempstresses, for
great ladies spent their time in it, and emulation quickened both the
genius and the diligence. So we need hardly say it became to the mother
a thing to be proud of, that her daughter Mysie proved herself so apt
a scholar that she became an adept, and was soon known as one of the
finest embroideresses in the great city. So, too, as a consequence,
it came to pass that great ladies employed her, and often the narrow
spiral staircase of Corbet’s Land was brushed on either side by the
huge masses of quilted and emblazoned silk that, enveloping the belles
of the day, were with difficulty forced up to, and down from, the small
room of the industrious Mysie.

But we are now speaking of art, while we should have more to say (for
it concerns us more) of the character of the young woman who was
destined to figure in a stranger way than in making beautiful figures
on silk. Mysie was one of a class; few in number they are indeed, but
on that account more to be prized. Her taste and fine manipulations
were but counterparts of qualities of the heart--an organ to which the
pale face, with its delicate lines, and the clear liquid eyes, was a
suitable index. The refinement which enabled her to make her imitation
of beautiful objects on the delicate material of her work was only
another form of a sensibility which pervaded her whole nature--that
gift which is only conceded to peculiar organisations, and is such a
doubtful one, too, if we go, as we cannot help doing, with the poet,
when he sings that “chords that vibrate sweetest pleasures,” often also
“thrill the deepest notes of woe.” Nay, we might say that the creatures
themselves seem to fear the gift, for they shrink from the touch of
the rough world, and retire within themselves as if to avoid it, while
they are only courting its effects in the play of an imagination much
too ardent for the duties of life. And, as a consequence, how they
seek secretly the support of stronger natures, clinging to them as do
those strange plants called parasites, which, with their tender arms
and something so like fingers, cling to the nearest stem of a stouter
neighbour, and embracing it, even though hollow and rotten, cover it,
and choke it with a flood of flowers. So true is it that woman, like
the generous vine, lives by being supported and held up; yet equally
true that the strength she gains is from the embrace she gives, and so
it is also that goodness, as our Scottish poet Home says, often wounds
itself, and affection proves the spring of sorrow.

All which might truly be applied to Mysie Craig; but as yet the
stronger stem to which she clung was her mother, and it was not
likely, nor was it in reality, that that affection would prove to her
anything but the spring of happiness, for it was ripened by love,
and the earnings of the nimble fingers, moving often into the still
hours of the night, not only kept the wolf from the door, but let in
the lambs of domestic harmony and peace. Would that these things had
so continued; but there are other wolves than those of poverty, and
the “ae lamb o’ the fauld” cannot be always under the protection of
the ewe; and so it happened on a certain night, not particularised
in the calendar, that our Mysie, having finished one of these floral
petticoats on which she had been engaged for many weeks, went forth
with her precious burden to deliver the same to its impatient
owner--no other than the then famous Anabella Gilroy, who resided in
Advocate’s Close. Of which fine lady, by the way, we may say that
of all the gay creatures who paraded between “the twa Bows,” no one
displayed such ample folds of brocaded silk, nodded her pon-pons more
jantily, or napped with a sharper crack her high-heeled shoes, all to
approve herself to “the bucks” of the time, with their square coats
brocaded with lace, their three-cornered hats on the top of their
bob-wigs, their knee-buckles and shoe-buckles. And certainly not the
least important of those, both in his own estimation and that of the
sprightly Anabella, was George Balgarnie, a young man who had only a
year before succeeded to the property of Balgruddery, somewhere in
the north, and of whom we might say that in forming him Nature had
taken so much pains with the building up of the body, that she had
forgotten the mind, so that he had no more spiritual matter in him than
sufficed to keep his blood hot, and enable his sensual organs to work
out their own selfish gratifications; or, to perpetrate a metaphor,
he was all the polished mahogany of a piano, without any more musical
springs than might respond to one keynote of selfishness. And surely
Anabella had approved herself to the fop to some purpose, for when our
sempstress with her bundle had got into the parlour of the fine lady,
she encountered no other than Balgarnie--a circumstance apparently of
very small importance, but we know that a moment of time is sometimes
like a small seed, which contains the nucleus of a great tree, perhaps
a poisonous one. And so it turned out that while Anabella was gloating
over the beautiful work of the timid embroideress, Balgarnie was
busy admiring the artist, but not merely, perhaps not at all, as an
artist--only as an object over whom he wished to exercise power.

This circumstance was not unobserved by the little embroideress, but it
was only observed to be shrunk from in her own timid way, and probably
it would soon have passed from her mind, if it had not been followed
up by something more direct and dangerous. And it was; for no sooner
had Mysie got to the foot of the stairs than she encountered Balgarnie,
who had gone out before her; and now began one of those romances in
daily life of which the world is full, and of which the world is sick.
Balgarnie, in short, commenced that kind of suit which is nearly as
old as the serpent, and, therefore, not to be wondered at; neither are
we to wonder that Mysie listened to it, because we have heard so much
about “lovely woman stooping to folly,” that we are content to put
it to the large account of natural miracles. And not very miraculous
either, when we remember, that if the low-breathed accents of
tenderness awaken the germ of love, they awaken at the same time faith
and trust; and such was the beginning of the romance which was to go
through the normal stages--the appointment to meet again--the meeting
itself--the others that followed--the extension of the moonlight walks,
sometimes to the Hunter’s Bog between Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury
Crags, and sometimes to the song-famed “Wells o’ Weary.” All which were
just as sun and shower to the germ of the plant: the love grew and
grew, and the faith grew and grew also which saw in him that which it
felt in itself. Nay, if any of those moonlight-loving elves that have
left their foot-marks in the fairy rings to be seen near St Anthony’s
Well had whispered in Mysie’s ear, “Balgarnie will never make you his
wife,” she would have believed the words as readily as if they had
impugned the sincerity of her own heart. In short, we have again the
analogue of the parasitic plant: the very fragility and timidity of
Mysie were at once the cause and consequence of her confidence. She
would cling to him and cover him with the blossoms of her affection;
nay, if there were unsoundness in the stem, these very blossoms would
cover the rottenness.

This change in the life of the little sempstress could not fail to
produce some corresponding change at home. We read smoothly the play we
have acted ourselves--and so the mother read love in the daughter’s
eyes, and heard it, too, in her long sighs; nor did she fail to read
the sign that the song which used to lighten her beautiful work was no
longer heard; for love to creatures so formed as Mysie Craig is too
serious an affair for poetical warbling. But she said nothing--for
while she had faith in the good sense and virtue of her daughter, she
knew also that there was forbearance due to one who was her support.
Nor, as yet, had she reason to fear, for Mysie still plied her needle,
and the roses and the lilies sprang up in all their varied colours
out of the ground of the silk or satin as quickly and as beautifully
as they were wont, though the lilies of her cheeks waxed paler as the
days flitted. And why the latter should have been we must leave to the
reader; for ourselves only hazarding the supposition that, perhaps, she
already thought that Balgarnie should be setting about to make her his
wife--an issue which behoved to be the result of their intimacy sooner
or later, for that in her simple mind there should be any other issue
was just about as impossible as that, in the event of the world lasting
as long, the next moon would not, at her proper time, again shine in
that green hollow, between the Lion’s Head and Samson’s Ribs, which
had so often been the scene of their happiness. Nay, we might say that
though a doubt on the subject had by any means got into her mind, it
would not have remained there longer than it took a shudder to scare
the wild thing away.

Of course, all this was only a question of time; but certain it is
that by and by the mother could see some connexion between Mysie’s
being more seldom out on those moonlight nights than formerly, and a
greater paleness in her thin face, as if the one had been the cause
of the other; but still she said nothing, for she daily expected that
Mysie would herself break the subject to her, and so she was left only
to increasing fears that her daughter’s heart and affections had been
tampered with, and perhaps she had fears that went farther. Still, so
far as yet had gone, there was no remission in the labours of Mysie’s
fingers, as if in the midst of all--whatever that all might be--she
recognised the paramount necessity of bringing in by those fingers
the required and usual amount of the means of their livelihood. Nay,
somehow or other, there was at that very time when her cheek was at the
palest, and her sighs were at their longest, and her disinclination
to speak was at the strongest, that the work increased upon her; for
was not there a grand tunic to embroider for Miss Anabella, which
was wanted on a given day--and were there not other things for Miss
Anabella’s friend, Miss Allardice, which were not to be delayed beyond
that same day. And so she stitched and stitched on and on, till
sometimes the little lamp seemed to go out for want of oil, while the
true cause of her diminished light was really the intrusion of the
morning sun, against which it had no chance. It might be, too, that her
very anxiety to get these grand dresses finished helped to keep out of
her mind ideas which could have done her small good, even if they had
got in.

But at length the eventful hour came when the gentle sempstress
withdrew the shining needle, made clear by long use, from the last
touch of the last rose; and, doubtless, if Mysie had not been under
the cloud of sorrow we have mentioned, she would have been happier at
the termination of so long a labour than she had ever been, for the
finishing evening had always been a great occasion to both the inmates;
nay, it had been always celebrated by a glass of strong Edinburgh
ale--a drink which, as both a liquor and a liqueur, was as famous then
as it is at this day. But of what avail was this work-termination to
her now? Was it not certain that she had not seen Balgarnie for two
moons, and though the impossibility of his not marrying her was just
as impossible as ever, why were these two moons left to shine in the
green hollow and on the rising hill without the privilege of throwing
the shadows of Mysie Craig and George Balgarnie on the grass, where the
fairies had left the traces of their dances? Questions these which
she was unable to answer, if it were not even that she was afraid to
put them to herself. Then, when was it that she felt herself unable
to tie up her work in order to take it home, and that her mother,
seeing the reacting effect of the prior sleepless nights in her languid
frame, did this little duty for her, even as while she was doing it
she looked through her tears at her changed daughter? But Mysie would
do so much. While the mother should go to Miss Allardice, Mysie would
proceed to Miss Anabella--and so it was arranged. They went forth
together, parting at the Netherbow; and Mysie, in spite of a weakness
which threatened to bring her with her burden to the ground, struggled
on to her destination. At the top of Advocate’s Close she saw a man
hurry out and increase his step even as her eye rested on him; and if
it had not appeared to her to be among the ultimate impossibilities of
things, natural as well as unnatural, she would have sworn that that
man was George Balgarnie; but then, it just so happened that Mysie came
to the conclusion that such a circumstance was among these ultimate
impossibilities.

This resolution was an effort which cost her more than the conviction
would have done, though doubtless she did not feel this at the time,
and so with a kind of forced step she mounted the stair, but when she
got into the presence of Miss Gilroy she could scarcely pronounce the
words--

“I have brought you the dress, ma’am.”

“And I am so delighted, Miss Craig, that I could almost take you into
my arms,” said the lady; “but what ails ye, dear? You are as white as
any snow I ever saw, whereas you ought to have been as blithe as a
bridesmaid, for don’t you know that you have brought me home one of my
marriage dresses? Come now, smile when I tell you that to-morrow is my
wedding-day.”

“Wedding-day,” muttered Mysie, as she thought of the aforesaid utter
impossibility of herself not being soon married to George Balgarnie, an
impossibility not rendered less impossible by the resolution she had
formed not to believe that within five minutes he had flown away from
her.

“Yes, Miss Craig, and surely you must have heard who the gentleman is,
for does not the town ring of it from the castle to the palace, from
Kirk-o’-Field to the Calton?”

“I have not been out,” said Mysie.

“That accounts for it,” continued the lady; “and I am delighted at the
reason, for wouldn’t it have been terrible to think that my marriage
with George Balgarnie of Balgruddery was a thing of so small a note as
not to be known everywhere?”

If Mysie Craig had appeared shortly before to Miss Gilroy paler than
any snow her ladyship had ever seen, she must now have been as pale
as some other kind of snow that nobody ever saw. The dreadful words
had, indeed, produced the adequate effect--but not in the most common
way, for we are to keep in view that it is not the most shrinking and
sensitive natures that are always the readiest to faint; and there was,
besides, the aforesaid conviction of impossibility which, grasping
the mind by a certain force, deadened the ear to words implying the
contrary. Mysie stood fixed to the spot, as if she were trying to
realise some certainty she dared not think was possible, her lips
apart, her eyes riveted on the face of the lady--mute as that kind of
picture which a certain ancient calls a silent poem, and motionless as
a figure of marble.

An attitude and appearance still more inexplicable to Anabella, perhaps
irritating as an unlucky omen, and, therefore, not possessing any claim
for sympathy--at least, it got none.

“Are you the Mysie Craig,” she cried, as she looked at the girl, “who
used to chat to me about the dresses you brought, and the flowers on
them? Ah, jealous and envious, is that it? But, you forget, George
Balgarnie never could have made _you_ his wife--a working needlewoman;
he only fancied you as the plaything of an hour. He told me so himself
when I charged him with having been seen in your company. So, Mysie,
you may as well look cheerful. Your turn will come next, with some one
in your own station.”

There are words which stimulate and confirm--there are others that
seem to kill the nerve and take away the sense, nor can we ever
tell the effect till we see it produced; and so we could not have
told beforehand--nay, we would have looked for something quite
opposite--that Mysie, shrinking and irritable as she was by nature, was
saved from a faint, (which had for some moments been threatening her,)
by the cruel insult which thus had been added to her misfortune. She
had even power to have recourse to that strange device of some natures,
that of “affecting to be not affected;” and, casting a glance at the
fine lady, she turned and went away without uttering a single word.
But who knows the pain of the conventional concealment of pain, except
those who have experienced the agony of the trial? Even at the moment
when she heard that George Balgarnie was to be married, and that she
came to know that she had been for weeks sewing the marriage dress of
his bride, she was carrying under her heart the living burden which was
the fruit of her love for that man. Yet not the burden of shame and
dishonour, as our story will show, for she was justified by the law
of her country--yea, by certain words once written by an apostle to
the Corinthians, all which may as yet appear a great mystery; but, as
regards Mysie Craig’s agony, as she staggered down Miss Gilroy’s stairs
on her way home, there could be no doubt or mystery whatever.

Nor, when she got home, was there any comfort there for the daughter
who had been so undutiful as to depart from her mother’s precepts, and
conceal from her not only her unfortunate connexion with a villain,
but the condition into which that connexion had brought her. But she
was, at least, saved from the pain of a part of the confession, for
her mother had learned enough from Miss Allardice to satisfy her as to
the cause of her daughter’s change from the happy creature she once
was, singing in the long nights as she wrought unremittingly at her
beautiful work, and the poor, sighing, pale, heart-broken thing she
had been for months. Nor did she fail to see, with the quick eye of a
mother, that as Mysie immediately on entering the house laid herself
quietly on the bed, and sobbed in her great agony, that she had learned
the terrible truth from Miss Gilroy that the robe she had embroidered
was to deck the bride of her destroyer. Moreover, her discretion
enabled her to perceive that this was not the time for explanation,
for the hours of grief are sacred, and the heart must be left to do its
work by opening the issues of Nature’s assuagement, or ceasing to beat.
So the night passed, without question or answer; and the following
day, that of the marriage, was one of silence, even as if death had
touched the tongue that used to be the medium of cheerful words and
tender sympathies--a strange contrast to the joy, if not revelry, in
Advocate’s Close.

It was not till after several days had passed that Mysie was able, as
she still lay in bed, to whisper, amidst the recurring sobs, in the
ear of her mother, as the latter bent over her, the real circumstances
of her condition; and still, amidst the trembling words, came the
vindication that she considered herself to be as much the wife of
George Balgarnie as if they had been joined by “Holy Kirk;” a statement
which the mother could not understand, if it was not to her a mystery,
rendered even more mysterious by a reference which Mysie made to the
law of the country, as she had heard the same from her cousin George
Davidson, a writer’s clerk in the Lawnmarket. Much of which, as it came
in broken syllables from the lips of the disconsolate daughter, the
mother put to the account of the fond dreams of a mind put out of joint
by the worst form of misery incident to young women. But what availed
explanations, mysteries or no mysteries, where the fact was patent
that Mysie Craig lay there, the poor heart-broken victim of man’s
perfidy--her powers of industry broken and useless--the fine weaving
genius of her fancy, whereby she wrought her embroidered devices to
deck and adorn beauty, only engaged now on portraying all the evils of
her future life; and, above all, was she not soon to become a mother?

Meanwhile, and in the midst of all this misery, the laid-up earnings
of Mysie’s industry wore away, where there was no work by those
cunning fingers--now thin and emaciated; and before the days passed,
and the critical day came whereon another burden would be imposed on
the household, there was need for the sympathy of neighbours in that
form which soon wears out--pecuniary help. That critical day at length
came. Mysie Craig gave birth to a boy, and their necessities from that
hour grew in quicker and greater proportion than the generosity of
friends. There behoved something to be done, and that without delay.
So when Mysie lay asleep, with the innocent evidence of her misfortune
by her side, Mrs Craig put on her red plaid and went forth on a
mother’s duty, and was soon in the presence of George Balgarnie and
his young wife. She was under an impulse which made light of delicate
conventionalities, and did not think it necessary to give the lady
an opportunity of being absent; nay, she rather would have her to be
present--for was she, who had been so far privy to the intercourse
between her husband and Mysie, to be exempt from the consequences which
she, in a sense, might have been said to have brought about?

“Ye have ruined Mysie Craig, sir!” cried at once the roused mother. “Ye
have ta’en awa her honour. Ye have ta’en awa her health. Ye have ta’en
awa her bread. Ay, and ye have reduced three human creatures to want,
it may be starvation; and I have come here in sair sorrow and necessity
to ask when and whaur is to be the remeid?”

“When and where you may find it, woman!” said the lady, as she cast a
side-glance to her husband, probably by way of appeal for the truth
of what she thought it right to say. “Mr Balgarnie never injured your
daughter. Let him who did the deed yield the remeid!”

“And do you stand by this?” said Mrs Craig.

But the husband had been already claimed as free from blame by
his wife, who kept her eye fixed upon him; and the obligation to
conscience, said by sceptics to be an offspring of society, is
sometimes weaker than what is due to a wife, in the estimation of whom
a man may wish to stand in a certain degree of elevation.

“You must seek another father to the child of your daughter,” said he,
lightly. And, not content with the denial, he supplemented it by a
laugh, as he added, “When birds go to the greenwood, they must take the
chance of meeting the goshawk.”

“And that is your answer?” said she.

“It is; and you need never trouble either my wife or me more on this
subject,” was the reply.

“Then may the vengeance o’ the God of justice light on the heads o’
baith o’ ye!” added Mrs Craig, as she went hurriedly away.

Nor was her threat intended as an empty one, for she held on her way
direct to the Lawnmarket, where she found George Davidson, to whom she
related as much as she had been able to get out of Mysie, and also what
had passed at the interview with Balgarnie and his lady. After hearing
which, the young writer shook his head.

“You will get a trifle of aliment,” said he; “perhaps half-a-crown
a week, but no more; and Mysie could have made that in a day by her
beautiful work.”

“And she will never work mair,” said the mother, with a sigh.

“For a hundred years,” rejoined he, more to himself than to her, and
probably in congratulation of himself for his perspicacity, “and since
ever there was a college of justice, there never was a case where a man
pulled up on oath for a promise of marriage admitted the fact. It is a
good Scotch law--only we want a people to obey it. But what,” he added
again, “if we were to try it, though it were only as a grim joke and a
revenge in so sad and terrible a case as that of poor Mysie Craig!”

Words which the mother understood no more than she did law Latin; and
so she was sent away as sorrowful as she had come, for Davidson did
not want to raise hopes which there was no chance of being fulfilled;
but he knew as a Scotchman that a man who trusts himself to “a strae
rape” in the hope of its breaking, may possibly hang himself, and so
it happened that the very next day a summons was served upon George
Balgarnie, to have it found and declared by the Lords of Session that
he had promised to marry Mysie Craig, whereupon a child had been born
by her; or, in fault of that, he was bound to sustain the said child.
Thereupon, without the ordinary law’s delay, certain proceedings went
on, in the course of which Mysie herself was examined as the mother to
afford what the lawyers call a _semiplena probatio_, or half proof, to
be supplemented otherwise, and thereafter George Balgarnie stood before
the august fifteen. He denied stoutly all intercourse with Mysie,
except an occasional walk in the Hunter’s Bog; and this he would have
denied also, but he knew that he had been seen, and that it would be
sworn to by others; and then came the last question, which Mr Greerson,
Mysie’s advocate, put in utter hopelessness. Nay, so futile did it seem
to try to catch a Scotchman by advising him to put his head in a noose
on the pretence of seeing how it fitted his neck, that he smiled even
as the words came out of his mouth--

“Did you ever promise to marry Mysie Craig?”

Was prudence, the chief of the four cardinal virtues, ever yet
consistent with vice? Balgarnie waxed clever--a dangerous trick in a
witness. He stroked his beard with a smile on his face, and answered--

“_Yes, once--when I was drunk!_”

Words which were immediately followed by the crack of a single word in
the dry mouth of one of the advocates--the word “NICKED.”

And nicked he was; for the presiding judge, addressing the witness,
said--

“The drunkenness may be good enough in its own way, sir; but it
does not take away the effect of your promise--nay, it is even an
aggravation, insomuch as having enjoyed the drink, you wanted to enjoy
with impunity what you could make of the promise also.”

If Balgarnie had been a reader he might have remembered Waller’s verse--

  “That eagle’s fate and mine are one,
    Which on the shaft that made him die
  Espied a feather of his own,
    Wherewith he wont to soar so high.”

So Mysie gained her plea, and the marriage with Anabella, for whom
she had embroidered the marriage-gown, was dissolved. How matters
progressed afterwards for a time we know not; but the Scotch know that
there is wisdom in making the best of a bad bargain, and in this case
it was a good one; for, as the Lady of Balgruddery, Mysie Craig did
no dishonour to George Balgarnie, who, moreover, found her a faithful
wife, and a good mother to the children that came of this strange
marriage.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of Pinched Tom.


In searching again Lord Kilkerran’s Session Papers in the Advocates’
Library, I observed a strange remark written on the margin of one of
them--“Beware of pinched Tom”--the meaning of which I was at a loss
to find. His lordship was known to be a very grave man, as well as an
excellent lawyer, and all so unlike the Newtons and Harmands, who made
the blind Lady Justice laugh by the antics of that other lady sung by
Beranger--Dame Folly--that I was put to my wit’s end, although I admit
that, by a reference to a part of the printed Session Papers opposite
to which the remark was made, I thought I could catch a glimmering
of his lordship’s intention. The law case occupying the papers
comprehended a question of disputed succession, and that question
involved the application of a curious law in Scotland, which still
remains.

I believe we borrowed it from that great repertory from which our
forefathers took so much wisdom--the Roman code; but be that as it
may, (and it’s no great matter in so far as regards my story,) certain
it is that it is a part of our jurisprudence, that where a marriage
is dissolved by the death of the wife within a year and a day of the
celebration thereof, without leaving a living child, the tocher goes
back to the wife’s friends. Of course nothing is more untrue than that
bit of connubial wit: that while we hold, according to the Bible, that
a man and his wife are _one_, we also very sensibly hold that the
husband is _that one_. Then the child behoves to be a living child; but
what constituted a living child often turned out to be as difficult
a question as what constitutes a new birth of a living Christian,
according to our good old sturdy Calvinism; for as all doctors know
that a child will, on coming into the world, give a breath or two
with a shiver, and then go off like a candle not properly lighted, it
became a question whether, in such a case, the child could be said to
have lived. Sometimes, too, the living symptom is less doubtful, as
in the case, also very common, where the little stranger gives a tiny
scream, the consequence of the filling of the lungs by the rushing in
of the air, and having experienced a touch of the evils of life, makes
up its mind to be off as quickly as possible from a wicked world. Now
this last symptom our Scotch law accepts as the only evidence which
can be received that the child had within it a living-spirit, or, as
we call it, an immortal soul. It would be of no importance that it
opened and shut its eyes, moved its hands, or kicked or sprawled in any
way you please; all this is nothing but infantine pantomime, and the
worst pantomime, too, that it has no possible meaning that any rational
person could understand, and so, therefore, it goes for nothing. In
short, our law holds that, unless “baby squeak,” there is no evidence
that baby ever lived. Nor is any distinction made between the male
and the female, although we know so well that the latter is much more
inclined to make a noise than the other, were it for nothing else than
to exhibit a first attempt to do that at which the sex are so good when
they grow up and get husbands.

To bring back the reader to Lord Kilkerran’s remark--“Beware of Pinched
Tom”--the case to which the note applied comprehended the question
whether the child had been heard to cry, and though the connexion might
be merely imaginary on my part, I recollected in the instant having
heard the story I now relate of Mr Thomas Whitelaw, a merchant burgess
of Edinburgh, who figured somewhere between the middle and the end of
last century, and took for wife a certain Janet Monypenny. In which
union “the sufficient reason” which always exists, though we do not
always know it, was on the part of the said Thomas the certainty that
Janet’s name (defying Shakespeare’s question) was a real designative
of a quality, that being that she possessed, in her own right, not
merely many a penny, but so many thousand pennies, that they amounted
to somewhere about two thousand merks, a large sum in those olden
days. And this money was perhaps the more valuable, that the heiress
had an unfortunate right by inheritance to consumption, whereby she
ran a risk of being taken away, leaving her money unconsumed in the
hands of her husband; an event, this latter, which our merchant burgess
could certainly have turned to more certain account if he had provided
against the law we have mentioned by entering into an antenuptial
contract of marriage, wherein it might have been set forth that, though
the marriage should be dissolved by the death of the wife before “year
and day,” without a living child being born thereof, yet the husband’s
right to the tocher would remain. But then Burgess Thomas did not know
of any such law, while Mr George Monypenny, the brother of Mrs Janet,
knew it perfectly, the more by token that he was a writer, that is, a
legal practitioner, at the Luckenbooths. And though Mr George might
have made a few pennies by writing out the contract, he never hinted
to his intended brother-in-law of the propriety of any such act,
because he knew that he had a chance of coming to more pennies, by the
death of his sister, within the year and the day.

So the marriage was entered into without more use of written paper than
what we call the marriage lines, and Writer George was satisfied until
he began to see that Mrs Whitelaw was likely to be a mother before the
expiry of the year and the day; but then he had the consolation--for,
alas! human nature was the same in those olden times that it is now--of
seeing that, while poor Janet was increasing in one way, she was
decreasing in another, so that it was not unlikely that there would be
not only a dead child, but a dead mother; and then he would come in
as nearest of kin for the tocher of two thousand merks, of all which
speculations on the part of the unnatural brother, Burgess Thomas knew
nothing. But it so happened that Mrs Euphan Lythgow, the most skilly
howdie or midwife in Edinburgh at that time, was the woman who was to
bring the child into the world, and she had seen indications enough to
satisfy her that there was a probability that things would go on in the
very way so cruelly hoped for by the man of the law; nay, she had her
eyes--open enough at all times--more opened still by some questions put
to her by the wily expectant, and so she held it to be her duty to go
straight to Burgess Thomas.

“I fear,” said she, “baith for the mother and the bairn, for she is
worn awa to skin and bane, and if she bear the heir she will only get
lighter, as we ca’ it, to tak on a heavier burden, even that o’ death.
The bairn may live, but it’s only a chance.”

Whereat Burgess Thomas looked sad, for he really loved his wife, but it
might just happen that a thought came into his head that death had no
power over the two thousand merks.

“If baith the mother and the bairn dee,” continued Euphan, “the money
you got by her will tak wing and flee awa to Mr George, her brother.”

“What mean you, woman?” asked Mr Whitelaw, as he looked wistfully and
fearfully into the face of the howdie.

“Had ye no’ a contract o’ marriage?” continued she.

“No,” was the answer.

“Aweel, ye’re in danger, for ken ye na it is our auld Scotch law that
when there’s nae contract, and the year and the day hasna passed, and
when the mither dees and the bairn dees without a cry, the tocher flees
back again? Heard ye never the auld rhyme--

  ‘Mither dead and bairn gane,
  Pay the tocher to her kin;
  But an ye hear the bairn squeal,
  Gudeman, grip the tocher weel.’”

“God bless me, Mrs Lythgow! is that the law?” cried the husband, in a
fright.

“Indeed, and it is,” was the rejoinder. “You are muckle obliged to
Writer George. If the bairn lives to be baptized, George is no the name
it will bear.”

“No,” replied he; “if a boy, it will be baptized Thomas.”

“Tam!” ejaculated the howdie in a screechy voice, the reason of which
might be that her son carrying that name had died during the year, and
she was affected.

But no sooner had the word Tam passed from her lips, than a large red
cat came from the rug, and looking up in her face, mewed in so very
expressive a way that the sadness which the recollection of her boy had
inspired passed suddenly away, and was succeeded by a comical look;
and rubbing Bawdrons “along of the hair,” as Mr Dickens would express
it, the true way of treating either cats or cat-witted people, she
continued addressing the favourite--

“And you, Tam, and I will be better acquainted before the twa thousand
merks are paid to Writer George.”

“What does the woman mean?” said the burgess. “What connexion is there
between that animal and my wife’s fortune?”

“Ye’ll ken that when the time comes,” was the answer; “but coming
nearer to the subject in hand, ye’ll take care to hae twa witnesses in
the blue-painted parlour, next to your bed-room, when I’m untwining the
mistress o’ her burden, whether it be a dead bairn or a living ane.”

“And what good will that do me if both the mother and child should
die?” inquired he.

“Ye’ll ken that when Writer George comes and asks ye for the tocher,”
was the answer.

Nor did Mrs Euphan Lythgow wait to throw any further light upon a
subject which appeared to the burgess to require more than the candle
of his own mind could supply if he should snuff it again and again,
and arn’t we, every one of us, always snuffing the candle so often
that we can see nothing? But Mrs Lythgow was what the Scotch people
call “a skilly woman.” She could see--to use an old and very common
expression--as far into a millstone as any one, and it was especially
clear to her that she would deliver Mrs Whitelaw of a dead child, that
death would deliver the mother of her life, and Writer George would
deliver Maister Whitelaw of two thousand good merks of Scotch money,
unless, as a poor salvage out of all this loss, she could deliver the
burgess out of the hands of the writer. And so the time passed till the
eventful evening came, when the wasted invalid was seized with those
premonitory pains which have come right down from old mother Eve to the
fair daughters of men, as a consequence of her eating the too sweet
paradise pippin. The indispensable Mrs Euphan Lythgow was sent for
express and came on the instant, for she knew she had unusual duties
to perform, nor did she forget as one of the chief of those to get
Mrs Jean Gilchrist, a neighbouring gossip, and Robina Proudfoot, the
servant, ensconsed in the said blue-painted parlour, for the sole end
that they should hear what they could hear, but as for seeing anything
that passed within the veil of the secret temple of Lucina, they were
not to be permitted to get a glimpse until such time as might please
the priestess of the mysteries herself.

All which secrecy has been followed by the unfortunate consequence
that history nowhere records what took place in that secret room for
an hour or two after the two women took up their station in the said
blue-painted chamber. But this much we know, that the house was so
silent that our favourite Tom could not have chosen a more auspicious
evening for mousing for prey in place of mewing for play, even if he
had had all the sagacity of the famous cats of Tartesia. As for Mrs
Gilchrist and Robina, they could not have listened more zealously, we
might even say effectually, if they had been gifted with ears as long
as those of certain animals in Trophonia; and surely we cannot be wrong
in saying they were successful listeners, when we are able to report
that Mrs Gilchrist nipped the bare fleshy arm of Robina, as a sign that
she heard what she wanted to hear.

“That’s the scream o’ the wean!” said she.

“Ay, and may the Lord be praised!” was the answer of Robina, in spite
of the nip.

But neither the one nor the other knew that that cry was verily
worth two thousand merks to Maister Burgess Whitelaw, the father,
who in a back-room sat in the deep pit of anxiety and heard nothing,
and perhaps it was better that he didn’t, for that cry might have
raised hopes--never to be realised--of the birth of a living son
or daughter, who would by and by lisp in his ear the charmed word
“Father”--of a dead wife’s recovery, after so terrible a trial to one
so much wasted--of the saving of his fortune from the ruthless hands
of his brother-in-law. But there is always some consolation for the
miserable, and didn’t Mrs Janet’s favourite, even Tom himself, with
his bright scarlet collar, come to him and sit upon his knee and look
up in his face and purr so audibly, that one might have thought he
was expressing sympathy and hope? So it is: nature is always laughing
at her own work. Even as this pantomime was acting, Mrs Lythgow opened
the door of the blue-painted chamber, and presenting a bundle to Mrs
Gilchrist--

“The bairn is dead,” she whispered; “lay it on the table there out o’
the sight o’ its mother, who will not live lang enough even to see its
dead face.”

“And yet we heard it cry,” said Robina. “Poor dear innocent,” she
added, as she peered among the folds of the flannel, “ye have had a
short life.”

“And no’ a merry ane,” added the gossip.

“Did ye expect the bairn to laugh, ye fule woman that ye are?” was the
reply of the howdie. “Come and help me wi’ the deeing mither.”

And straightway the three women were by the bedside of the patient,
in whose throat Death was already sounding his rattle, after the last
effort of exhausted nature to give to the world a life in exchange for
her own; and Mr Whitelaw was there too to witness the dying throes
of his wife, with perhaps the thought in his mind that the gods are
pitiless as well as foolish, for what was the use of giving him a dead
child in recompense for a dead mother, and taking away from him, at the
very same moment, the said two thousand merks of good Scotch money.
Wherein, so far, Mr Whitelaw was himself unjust to these much abused
gods; but he did not know as yet that the child had cried, and who
knows what consoling effect that circumstance might have had upon one
who was what Pindar calls “a man of money.” At least, we will give to
any man more than one of these merks who will show us out of the great
“Treasury of Evils,” mentioned by the Greek poets, any one which cannot
be ameliorated by money. And so Mr Whitelaw heard, in the last expiring
breath of Mrs Janet Monypenny the departing sign of the loss of the
three greatest good things of this world--a wife, a child, and a tocher.

But the moral oscillation comes round as sure as that of the pendulum,
and in accordance with that law Mr Whitelaw was, within a short time
after the death of his wife, told by Mrs Gilchrist that the child had
made the much-wished-for sign of life. A communication, this, very
easily accounted for, but we do not undertake to explain why, when Mr
Whitelaw heard it, he was scarcely equal to the task of preventing
an expression upon his sorrowful countenance which an ill-natured
person would call a smile. Nor, indeed, is there any way of explaining
so inexplicable a phenomenon, except by having recourse to the fact
mentioned by Burns, that “man is a riddle.” A solution which will also
serve us when we further narrate that this small wail of the child
lightened wonderfully Mr Whitelaw’s duty in getting all things arranged
for the funeral, including the melancholy peculiarity of getting the
coffin made that was to contain a mother and her first-born. Nay, it
enabled him even at the funeral to meet the triumphant look of his
brother-in-law, Writer George, as it clearly said, even in the midst of
his tears, “You owe me two thousand merks;” for we are to remember that
Mr Whitelaw, in exchange for the writer’s perfidy in not mentioning to
him the necessity of a contract of marriage, had with a spice of malice
concealed from him the fact of the child having been heard to cry, and
then it was natural for the writer to suppose that the child had been
born dead.

As money ameliorates grief, business prevents grief from taking
possession of the mind; and so we need not be surprised that within a
week Mr Monypenny served Mr Whitelaw with a summons to appear before
the fifteen Scotch lords who sat round a table in the form of a
horse-shoe in the Parliament House of Edinburgh, or Court of Session,
and there be ordered to pay to the pursuer or plaintiff the said two
thousand merks, which devolved upon him, as the heir of his sister,
in consequence of the dissolution of the marriage within a year and a
day, without a living child being born thereof. Nor was Mr Whitelaw,
angry as he was and withal confident of success, slow to give in his
defence to the effect that the child had been born alive, and had been
heard to scream--a defence which startled Writer George mightily;
for it was the first intimation he had got of the important fact,
and his experience told him how supple Scotch witnesses are--even to
the extent that it took no fewer than fifteen learned judges to get
the subtle thing called truth out of the subtle minds of “the canny
people;” but he had no alternative than to consent to the commission to
Maister Wylie, advocate, to take a proof of the defender’s averment and
report. And so accordingly the proceedings went on. Mr Advocate Wylie
sat in one of the rooms adjoining the court to take the depositions
of the witnesses, and Mr Williamson was there for Mr Whitelaw, and
Mr Hamilton for Mr Monypenny. The first witness called was Mrs Jean
Gilchrist, who swore very honestly that she heard the child scream; and
Robina Proudfoot swore as honestly to the same thing; nor could all
the efforts of Mr Advocate Hamilton shake those sturdy witnesses, if
it was not that, as so often happens with Scotch witnesses, the more
the advocate wrestled with them, the more firm they waxed. Nor need
we say that the philosophical axiom, that the intensity of belief is
always inversely as the reason for it, never had weight with our Scotch
judges. But then came the difficulty about the _causa scientiæ_; for
neither of the two witnesses could swear that she _saw_ the child alive
and after the scream, inasmuch as the child was certainly dead before
they saw the body; so it was only at best a strong presumption that the
cry actually did come from that child. The witnesses dispersed these
quibbles, and insisted that, as there was no other child in that room,
the cry could come from no other source than Mrs Whitelaw’s baby. But
the crowning witness was to come--Mrs Euphan Lythgow herself, who would
put an end to all doubts; and come she did. Asked whether she delivered
Mrs Whitelaw of a child on the night in question, her answer was in the
affirmative.

“Was it a boy or a girl?”

“A _callant_, sir,” was the answer; for Scotch witnesses _will_ use
their own terms, let counsel do what they please. “And,” added Mrs
Lythgow, “he was to be baptized after his father when the time came. He
was to be called Tammas.”

“Just so,” continued Mr Hamilton; “and was he dead or alive when he was
born?”

“Indeed, sir, little Tam wras as life-like as you are when I handled
him wi’ thae hands.”

“How do you know that?” was the next question.

“Ken whether a bairn is dead or living?” responded the midwife, with an
ironical laugh. “Do dead bairns scream, think ye, Maister Hamilton? Ay,
sir, I heard little Tam cry just as plainly as I hear you speak. It’s
God’s way wi’ mony a wean. They seem to ken it’s an ill warld they’re
born into, wi’ so mony lawyers in’t, and they just gie a cry and gae
awa back again.”

And thus the evidence was concluded; nor did it ever occur to these
hair-wigged and ear-wigged gentlemen to ask the astute howdie whether
there was any other creature in the house (except Mr Thomas Whitelaw
himself, who was out of the question) that bore the name of Tam;
and Mrs Lythgow’s conscience, like many others, sat as easy on the
equivocation as a hen does on an addled egg with a shell like the rest,
which contain little chickens all alive. And the case was virtually
saved, as subsequently appeared, when the fifteen, all ear-wigged too,
pronounced sentence in favour of the defender, Mr Whitelaw. But it was
not till some time afterwards the real truth came out. “The labourer is
worthy of his hire,” and when Mrs Euphan called for fee, on Mr Whitelaw
asking how much, the cunning howdie replied--

“Just a hundred merks, Maister Whitelaw.”

“A hundred merks for bringing a child into the world, which lived no
longer than to give a scream?”

“Ay, but you forget _pinched Tam_,” replied she.

Whereupon Mr Whitelaw began to meditate, and thereupon ejaculated--“Oh!
I see. Yes, yes; I did forget pinched Tam; and now I remember, he came
into me that evening after you had ejected him from the bed-room.”

“Surely, sir,” rejoined the woman; “think ye I was fule enough to keep
him in the room to be seen by the women, after I had got out o’ him a’
that I wanted?”

And Mrs Lythgow got her hundred merks. How the incident came to the
ears of Lord Kilkerran, history saith not; but if you are curious, you
may see upon the margin of the said Session Paper the words--“Beware of
pinched Tom!”

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of the Iron Press.


The story of the Iron Press hung about my memory for years before I
got it localised; nor do I know very well how it came to me, whether
from the page of an old broad-sheet, or the tougher tongue of an old
dame--the real vellum for the inscription of wonderful legends. However
this may be, it is of small importance, inasmuch as I was subsequently
so fortunate--and the word will be properly estimated by the real
story-hunter--as to find myself in the very room where the recess of
the press was still to be seen. How I did look at it, to be sure! nay,
if it had been of gold--all my own, too--I question if I could have
gazed into the dark recess with more interest; for gold, to people
of my bias, is nothing in comparison with the enchantment that hangs
about the real concrete _souvenir_ of an old wonder. But before going
further, I must apprise the English reader that the word “press”--a
Scotch word of somewhat doubtful derivation (_maugre_ Jamieson)--is
convertible into the more modern designation “cupboard,” or rather
“pantry;” with the qualification that our Scotch term more generally
implies the adjunct of a door with lock and key.

With which help you may be induced to represent to yourself, as
vividly as the fervour of your imagination may enable you, the house
in Hyndford’s Close, which, at the time wherein we are concerned, was
occupied by a retired advocate called Mr George Plenderleith. You may
see in it yet the signs of its old gentility. There are the panellings
on the walls, the hooks whereon were suspended the flowered and figured
draperies, the painted roofs, the peculiar enamelled sides of the
chimneys having the appearance of china--all so very unlike our modern
house fashions. It may not be that the iron press which was in the
back bed-room, and the recess of which still remains, had anything to
do with the fashion of the time; nor would it be easy to divine its
use in a private gentleman’s house, who had no ledgers, journals, or
cash-books to preserve from fire, lest certain creditors might say they
were burnt to help concealment. Perhaps it was for the conservation of
some great property rights, or title-deeds as we call them; perhaps
state papers--anything you like, but not the least unlikely, it may
have been for the purpose of concealing some unfortunate Covenanter,
who could still boast, in his pathetic way, that he had verily
nowhere to lay his head; for the cell was too small for a reclining
posture--nay, he could scarcely have got upon his knees to offer his
Ebenezer for the preservation of the solemn league and covenant, and
give thanks that he had got out of “the bishop’s drag-net” and into an
iron cage.

Most certainly, at least, this iron cage was not intended to immure the
delicate person of the beautiful Ailsie Plenderleith, the only daughter
of the advocate--nay, the greatest belle you could have met, displaying
her gown of mazerine and her petticoat of cramosie, from “the castle
on the knowe to the palace in the howe;” or, as the saying went, from
“the castle gate to the palace yett.” We don’t doubt that our Miss
Ailsie deserved all this high-flown praise; only we are to keep in mind
that no young lady that ever figured in a legend, from the time of
the Fair Maid of Troy to her of Perth, was ever anything less than an
angel without wings. And in the case of our Ailsie, she might well have
passed for possessing these appendages too, when we consider that she
would not be behind her sister-belles in the size of those heavy folds
of braided silk they drew through their pocket-holes, and seemed to fly
with. We need not say that such a creature, if amiable in her mind and
affections, would be doated on by such a father as Mr Plenderleith, who
had now no wife to console him, and who would expect from his child at
least as much love as he was willing to bestow on her. And so, to be
sure, it was; he loved his dear Ailsie to what may be called paternal
distraction, but as for how much dutiful affection Ailsie bestowed on
him, we cannot say.

On another point we can be more sure, and that is, that although her
father had many nice beaux in his eye who had a power to _dot_, and
doubtless on so fine a subject no disinclination at all to _doat_, the
never a one of them would the saucy Ailsie look upon except with that
haughty disdain which, when it appears in a beautiful woman, is so
apt to pique young admirers into greater adoration, mixed, it may be,
sometimes with a little choler--a thing that is not so alien to love as
you would imagine. Nor was the reason of all this cold _hauteur_ any
wonder at all when we are given to know that Miss Plenderleith had one
day, by the merest chance, taken into her eye, and even to the back
or innermost recesses thereof, the figure of a young student of “old
Embro’ College,” called Frederick Lind, a poor bursar of no family,
but blessed with what was ten thousand times of more importance in
the estimation of the tasteful Ailsie--a handsome person, and a fine
ruddy, intelligent face, which was lighted up with an eye as likely to
drink up the form of Ailsie as hers had been to receive his. And no
doubt it may appear very wonderful that Cupid, who is, as they say,
as blind as a bat, and so hits by chance, should have the power of
imparting to the eyes of his victims the faculty not only of seeing
each other more clearly than before, but also of reading each other’s
eyes so plainly, that by a glance they know that they are mutually
thinking of each other. But such, we all know very well, is the fact,
and so Frederick Lind and Ailsie Plenderleith came to this state of
knowledge, and not only so, they came to means of ascertaining, by
actual conversation, whether such was really the case or not--the
consequence of which was just the natural one, that the sympathy of
this knowledge became the sympathy of love; and we suspect that if any
one was to blame for this, it was Old Mother Nature herself, who is
considerably stronger and more dogmatic in her opinions than either
mother or father of earthly mould.

The connexion thus formed--we are compelled, though sorry, to say,
clandestinely--might not have entailed upon the young devotees any
very formidable consequences, had they been prudent, and confined
their meetings to St Leonard’s Double-dykes, St Anthony’s Well, the
Giant’s Ribs, the Hunter’s Bog, or the Friar’s Walk. Nay, they might
have adventured even less recondite walks; but they had some notions
of comfort which would be gratified with nothing short of a roof over
their very irrational heads, and probably a fire burning by their
sides, as if love could not have kept itself in fuel without the
assistance of so coarse and earthy a thing as Midlothian coal.

While all this was going forward, and generating confidence in the
ordinary ratio of successful immunity, our good and loving old Mr
Advocate Plenderleith was just as busy with _his_ eyes in endeavouring
to find out among the said beaux of Edinburgh, with their braided
broad-tailed coats and ruffled wristbands, of which Mr Frederick Lind
had nothing to boast, such a one as would be likely to form a suitable
husband to his pretty but scornful, (to all save one,) daughter, and a
promising son-in-law to himself; that is, one who would bring a sum to
the mutual exchequer, and take care not only of Ailsie, but that fine
property of his in Lanarkshire, called Threemarks, from its valuation
in the land-roll being of that very considerable extent. And so he
did his best to invite one or two of them to his house in Hyndford’s
Close to drink a bottle of claret, and see Miss Ailsie through the
charmed medium of the same, being satisfied that a young woman is
seen to more advantage through that medium than through the roses of
the Paphian groves where Venus dallies with her son. But all this
paternal black-footing would not do, because the step went only in
one direction, without a return. Our Ailsie scorned them all--a very
unwise policy in the little rebel, for she might have seen that her
father, who was a shrewd man, would be likely to suspect that the ship
which rides at an anchor, however little seen, is just that very one
which seems to defy most the blustering winds and the rolling waves.
And accordingly Mr Plenderleith began to think that his daughter’s
heart must be anchored somewhere--not so likely on golden sands as
on some tough clay--and _that_ “where” he would have given his old
Parliament-House wig, with all the meal in it to boot, to find out.
Nay, he began to be angry before he could assure himself of the fact;
and being as determined under a restrainer as he ever had been under a
retainer, he was a dangerous man for even a loving daughter to tamper
with.

But old fathers, probably with spectacles, are not good watchers of
their love-stricken daughters; and Mr Plenderleith, knowing this,
placed confidence in his old servant or servitor, (as these domestic
Balderstones were then called,) Andrew Crabbin, and got him to keep an
eye upon the outgoings and incomings, and companionship and letters of
the unsuspecting Ailsie. On the other hand, she was inclined to place
faith in Andrew--not that she let him know the name or degree of her
beloved Frederick, but that she bespoke his secrecy in the event of his
seeing her with a highly respectable young man, of genteel connexions,
whom her father would be delighted to receive as a son-in-law, but who
was not just yet in a position to present himself in the drawing-room.
Which two confidences Andrew received together, and found means in
his canny Scotch head to entertain both kindly, but with a foregone
conclusion that he would make more money out of the rents and fees of
his master than the pin-money of poor Ailsie.

Yet Miss Plenderleith was so dexterous in managing her intrigue, that
Andrew had for a time nothing to reveal; but opportunity comes at
the end to patience, and this was the case one night when Andrew was
busy cleaning his master’s long boots in an outhouse at the back of
the dwelling-house; for as he was straining to get the article in his
hand as bright as the “Day and Martin” of the time would make it, his
attention was directed to a sound from the red-tiled roof. Whereupon,
pricking up his ears, Andrew put his head out at the door, and what in
all this wide earth does he see but two boots disappearing at Ailsie’s
bed-room window! He had never seen any of the two or three pairs his
master possessed going into the house in that way, and probably he did
not need that fact to explain to him the wonderful apparition. Nor was
it any question with him what to do. The hour was late, but his master
was not gone to bed, if he was not yet engaged over his mulled claret,
with a bit of toast done pretty brown in it.

Having accordingly got, unobserved from above, into the back-door--the
more by reason that he waited till the window-sash came down with all
prudential softness of sound--Andrew made his way up-stairs to the room
where Mr Plenderleith was regaling himself, and probably thinking of
the scornful Ailsie, who would not accord to his matrimonial wishes.
“There’s a young man gone in this minute at Miss Ailsie’s bed-room
window,” said he, in a mysterious way, to his master; whereupon Mr
Plenderleith started up in a great rage, and rushing to a closet
brought forth a long rapier of formidable sharpness. “I will slay him
on the spot,” said he, “for it is hamesucken and a deuced deal more,
and I have law on my side. Come with me, Andrew Crabbin.” But Andrew’s
intermediate views did not accord with the slaughter of Ailsie’s lover.
“Wait,” says he, “till I listen;” and hastening to Miss Plenderleith’s
room, he tirled at the door, so that it might be heard inside, but not
by his enraged master, whose spirit was more in his fiery eye than
his ear; and coming back more slowly than comported with his master’s
fury--“Now’s your time,” said he, “for I heard him inside.” Nor was
there now any time lost, for the infuriated father rushed along the
lobby to his daughter’s chamber door, which, to his surprise, he found
unfastened; and, having entered, he found Ailsie all very much at her
ease, nor was there anything to rouse his suspicions at all except the
condition of the blind, which was drawn up. No more was needed--that
was enough; the angry father accused his daughter with having had a
man in her bed-room. Ailsie denied the charge, but it was of no avail.
Orders were upon the instant issued to get the carriage ready, and in
the course of an hour afterwards Mr Plenderleith and his daughter, with
Andrew and the two female servants in a hired carriage, were on their
way to his house at Threemarks. The house in Hyndford’s Close was shut
up. Mr Plenderleith had in so short a period made up his mind, and
executed a purpose which he considered necessary to his own honour and
his daughter’s preservation.

Time passed on, and in the meantime Andrew kept his secret, delighted
in his own mind that he had saved the life of the young man. About a
month afterwards Mr Plenderleith came to town alone, and having entered
the house found everything precisely as he left it. But he had an
object--no other than to discover whether Ailsie had left any letters
whereby he might discover the name of the clandestine lover. So far he
succeeded, and having returned to Threemarks, he some time afterwards
despatched Andrew to Edinburgh to make inquiries as to a student of the
name of Frederick Lind. This commission Andrew executed with fidelity,
but all his efforts were vain; no tidings could be heard of the youth.
The landlady with whom he had lodged said that he had gone out one
night and had never returned; and the opinion of his relations, to whom
she had communicated the fact of his absence, was, that he had gone to
England, where he also had relations. With this account Mr Plenderleith
was so far pleased, but he continued from time to time to repeat his
inquiries with no better, or rather to him worse, success. Yet such was
his apprehension lest his daughter should again have it in her power to
deceive him, that he remained at Threemarks for the full space of three
years and more.

Meanwhile Ailsie, having come to the conclusion that she would not see
her lover again, renounced all thoughts of him except what perhaps at
night would rise up to her fancy, when the internal lights play false
with the reason. The young heart requires only time to renounce the
strongest passion, though a cherished memory will still hang suspended
over the sacred tomb of its affections. And so it was. More time
passed, till at length Ailsie Plenderleith agreed to give her hand to
a young advocate of the name of George Graham, who had good prospects
at the bar. The couple were to be married in Hyndford’s Close, and
the house was put in order to receive them. Ailsie came in a bride.
The ceremony was performed with great _éclat_ and rejoicings. And now
comes that part of the legend which always fits so well to some great
occasion, such as a marriage; but we must take these things as we find
them. The new-married couple were to sleep in the room which had been
the scene of so strange a play three or four years ago. On returning to
take off her bride’s dress, her eye became fixed upon the door of the
iron press. A wild thought seized her brain: she applied her finger to
the well-known spring. The door opened, and the skeleton of Frederick
Lind fell out against her, rattling in the clothes that hung about it,
and striking her as it fell with a loud crash on the floor.

The explanation of our legend is not difficult. Lind had been pushed
into the press on previous occasions, without the door being closed
entirely upon him. Ailsie, on the fatal evening, had no doubt thought
that she had left the door as she used to do; but in the hurry
consequent on the coming of her father, she had committed the terrible
mistake of imparting to it too much impulse, whereby the lock had
caught; and as the spring was not available inside, the prisoner was
immured beyond the chance of escape. So narrow, too, was the recess,
that the skeleton form had stood upright in the clothes, and it thus
fell out when relieved of the support of the door.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of the Girl Forger.


It is a common thing for writers of a certain class, when they want
to produce the feeling of wonder in their readers, to introduce some
frantic action, and then to account for it by letting out the secret
that the actor was mad. The trick is not so necessary as it seems,
for the strength of human passions is a potentiality only limited
by experience; and so it is that a sane person may under certain
stimulants do the maddest thing in the world. The passion itself is
always true, it is only the motive that may be false; and therefore it
is that in narrating for your amusement, perhaps I may add instruction,
the following singular story--traces of the main parts of which I got
in the old books of a former procurator-fiscal--I assume that there
was no more insanity in the principal actor, Euphemia, or, as she was
called, Effie, Carr, when she brought herself within the arms of the
law, than there is in you, when now you are reading the story of her
strange life. She was the only daughter of John Carr, a grain merchant,
who lived in Bristo Street. It would be easy to ascribe to her all
the ordinary and extraordinary charms that are thought so necessary
to embellish heroines; but as we are not told what these were in her
case, we must be contented with the assurance that nature had been
kind enough to her to give her power over the hearts of men. We shall
be nearer our purpose when we state, what is necessary to explain a
peculiar part of our story, that her father, in consequence of his own
insufficient education, had got her trained to help him in keeping
his accounts with the farmers, and in writing up his books; nay, she
enjoyed the privilege of writing his drafts upon the Bank of Scotland,
which the father contrived to sign, though in his own illiterate way,
and with a peculiarity which it would not have been easy to imitate.

But our gentle clerk did not consider these duties imposed upon her by
her father as excluding her either from gratifying her love of domestic
habits by assisting her mother in what at that time was denominated
hussyskep or housekeeping, or from a certain other gratification,
which might without a hint from us be anticipated--no other than the
luxury of falling head and ears, and heart too we fancy, in love with
a certain dashing young student of the name of Robert Stormonth, then
attending the University more for the sake of polish than of mere
study; for he was the son of the proprietor of Kelton, and required to
follow no profession. How Effie got entangled with this youth we have
no means of knowing, so we must be contented with the Scotch proverb--

  “Tell me where the flea may bite,
  And I will tell where love may light.”

The probability is that, from the difference of their stations and
the retiring nature of our gentle clerk, we shall be safe in assuming
that he had, as the saying goes, been smitten by her charms in some of
those street encounters, where there is more of Love’s work done than
in “black-footed” tea coteries expressly held for the accommodation of
Cupid. And that the smitting was a genuine feeling we are not left to
doubt, for, in addition to the reasons we shall afterwards have too
good occasion to know, he treated Effie, not as those wild students
who are great men’s sons do “the light o’ loves” they meet in their
escapades; for he intrusted his secrets to her, he took such small
counsel from her poor head as a “learned clerk” might be supposed able
to give; nay, he told her of his mother, and how one day he hoped to be
able to introduce her at Kelton as his wife. All which Effie repaid
with the devotedness of that most wonderful affection called the first
or virgin love--the purest, the deepest, the most thoroughgoing of
all the emotions of the human heart. But as yet he had not conceded
to her wish that he should consent to their love being made known to
Effie’s father and mother: love is only a leveller to itself and its
object; the high-born youth, inured to refined manners, shrunk from
a family intercourse, which put him too much in mind of the revolt
he had made against the presumed wishes and intentions of his proud
parents. Wherein, after all, he was only true to the instincts of that
institution, apparently so inhumane as well as unchristian in its
exclusiveness, called aristocracy; and yet with the excuse that its
roots are pretty deeply set in human nature.

But, proud as he was, Bob Stormonth the younger, of Kelton, was
amenable to the obligations of a necessity, forged by his own imprudent
hands. He had, by a fast mode of living, got into debt--a condition
from which his father, a stern man, had relieved him twice before,
but with a threat on the last occasion that if he persevered in his
prodigality he would withdraw from him his yearly allowance, and throw
him upon his own resources. The threat proved ineffectual, and this
young heir of entail, with all his pride, was once in the grasp of
low-born creditors: nay, things in this evil direction had gone so
far that writs were out against him, and one in the form of a caption
was already in the hands of a messenger-at-arms. That the debts were
comparatively small in amount was no amelioration where the purse was
all but empty; and he had exhausted the limited exchequers of his
chums, which with college youths was, and is, not difficult to do. So
the gay Bob was driven to his last shift, and that, as is generally the
case, was a mean one; for necessity, as the mother of inventions, does
not think it proper to limit her births to genteel or noble devices
to please her proud consort. He even had recourse to poor Effie to
help him; and, however ridiculous this may seem, there were reasons
that made the application appear not so desperate as some of his other
schemes. It was only the caption that as yet quickened his fears; and
as the sum for which the writ was issued was only twenty pounds, it was
not, after all, so much beyond the power of a clerk.

It was during one of their ordinary walks in the Meadows that the
pressing necessity was opened by Stormonth to the vexed and terrified
girl. He told her that, but for the small help he required in the
meantime, all would be ruined. The wrath of his father would be excited
once more, and probably to the exclusion of all reconciliation; and
he himself compelled to flee, but whither he knew not. He had his plan
prepared, and proposed to Effie, who had no means of her own, _to take
a loan_ of the sum out of her father’s cash-box--words very properly
chosen according to the euphemistic policy of the devil, but Effie’s
genuine spirit was roused and alarmed.

“Dreadful!” she whispered, as if afraid that the night-wind would carry
her words to honest ears. “Besides,” she continued, “my father, who is
a hard man, keeps his desk lockit.”

Words which took Stormonth aback, for even he saw there was here a
necessity as strong as his own; yet the power of invention went to work
again.

“Listen, Effie,” said he. “If you cannot help me, it is not likely we
shall meet again. I am desperate, and will go into the army.”

The ear of Effie was chained to a force which was direct upon the
heart. She trembled and looked wistfully into his face, even as if by
that look she could extract from him some other device less fearful by
which she might have the power of retaining him for so short a period
as a day.

“You draw out your father’s drafts on the bank, Effie,” he continued.
“Write one out for me, and I will put your father’s name to it. You
can draw the money. I will be saved from ruin; and your father will
never know.”

A proposal which again brought a shudder over the girl.

“Is it Robert Stormonth who asks me to do this thing?” she whispered
again.

“No,” said he; “for I am not myself. Yesterday, and before the
messenger was after me, I would have shrunk from the suggestion. I am
not myself, I say, Effie. Ay or no; keep me or lose me,--that is the
alternative.”

“Oh, I cannot,” was the language of her innocence, and for which he was
prepared; for the stimulant was again applied in the most powerful of
all forms--the word farewell was sounded in her ear.

“Stop, Robert; let me think.” But there was no thought, only the heart
beating wildly. “I will do it; and may the penalty be mine, and mine
only.”

So it was: “even virtue’s self turns vice when misapplied.” What her
mind shrank from was embraced by the heart as a kind of sacred duty of
a love making a sacrifice for the object of its first worship. It was
arranged; and as the firmness of a purpose is often in proportion to
the prior disinclination, so Effie’s determination to save her lover
from ruin was forthwith put in execution; nay, there was even a touch
of the heroine in her, so wonderfully does the heart, acting under its
primary instincts, sanctify the device which favours its affection.
That same evening Effie Carr wrote out the draft for twenty pounds on
the Bank of Scotland, gave it to Stormonth, who from a signature of
the father’s, also furnished by her, perpetrated the forgery--a crime
at that time punishable by death. The draft so signed was returned to
Effie. Next forenoon she went to the bank, as she had often done for
her father before; and the document being in her handwriting, as prior
ones of the same kind had also been, no scrutinising eye was turned
to the signature. The money was handed over, but _not counted_ by the
recipient, as before had been her careful habit--a circumstance with
its effect to follow in due time. Meanwhile Stormonth was at a place of
appointment out of the reach of the executor of the law, and was soon
found out by Effie, who gave him the money with trembling hands. For
this surely a kiss was due. We do not know; but she returned with the
satisfaction, overcoming all the impulses of fear and remorse, that she
had saved the object of her first and only love from ruin and flight.

But even then the reaction was on the spring; the rebound was to be
fearful and fatal. The teller at the bank had been struck with Effie’s
manner; and the non-counting of the notes had roused a suspicion,
which fought its way even against the improbability of a mere girl
perpetrating a crime from which females are generally free. He examined
the draft, and soon saw that the signature was a bad imitation.
Thereupon a messenger was despatched to Bristo Street for inquiry. John
Carr, taken by surprise, declared that the draft, though written by
the daughter, was forged--the forgery being in his own mind attributed
to George Lindsay, his young salesman. Enough this for the bank, who
had in the first place only to do with the utterer, against whom their
evidence as yet only lay. Within a few hours afterwards Effie Carr was
in the Tolbooth, charged with the crime of forging a cheque on her
father’s account-current.

The news soon spread over Edinburgh--at that time only an overgrown
village, in so far as regarded local facilities for the spread of
wonders. It had begun there, where the mother was in recurring faints,
the father in distraction and not less mystery, George Lindsay in
terror and pity. And here comes in the next strange turn of our story.
Lindsay all of a sudden declared he was the person who imitated the
name--a device of the yearning heart to save the girl of his affection
from the gallows, and clutched at by the mother and father as a means
of their daughter’s redemption. One of those thinly-sown beings who
are cold-blooded by nature, who take on love slowly but surely, and
seem fitted to be martyrs, Lindsay defied all consequences, so that it
might be that Effie Carr should escape an ignominious death. Nor did he
take time for further deliberation; in less than half an hour he was in
the procurator-fiscal’s office; the willing self-criminator; the man
who did the deed; the man who was ready to die for his young mistress
and his love. His story, too, was as ready as it was truth-seeming.
He declared that he had got Effie to write out the draft as if
commissioned by John Carr; that he took it away, and with his own hands
added the name; that he had returned the cheque to Effie to go with it
to the bank, and had received the money from her on her return. The
consequence was his wish, and it was inevitable. That same day George
Lindsay was lodged also in the Tolbooth, satisfied that he had made
a sacrifice of his life for one whom he had loved for years, and who
yet had never shown him even a symptom of hope that his love would be
returned.

All which proceedings soon came on the wings of rumour to the ears of
Robert Stormonth, who was not formed to be a martyr even for a love
which was to him as true as his nature would permit. He saw his danger,
because he did not see the character of a faithful girl who would die
rather than compromise her lover. He fled--aided probably by that very
money he had wrung out of the hands of the devoted girl; nor was his
disappearance connected with the tragic transaction; for, as we have
said, the connexion between him and Effie had been kept a secret, and
his flight could be sufficiently accounted for by his debt.

Meanwhile the precognitions or examination of the parties went on,
and with a result as strange as it was puzzling to the officials.
Effie was firm to her declaration that she not only wrote the body
of the cheque, but attached to it the name of her father, and had
appropriated the money in a way which she declined to state. On the
other hand, Lindsay was equally stanch to his statement made to the
procurator-fiscal, that he had got Effie to write the draft, had forged
the name to it, and got the money from her. The authorities very soon
saw that they had got more than the law bargained for or wanted; nor
was the difficulty likely soon to be solved. The two parties could not
both be guilty, according to the evidence, nor could one of them be
guilty to the exclusion of the other; neither, when the balance was
cast, was there much difference in the weight of the scales, because
while it was in one view more likely that Lindsay signed the false
name, it was beyond doubt that Effie wrote the body of the document,
and she had moreover presented it. But was it for the honour of the
law that people should be hanged on a likelihood? It was a new case
without new heads to decide it, and it made no difference that the
body of the people, who soon became inflamed on the subject, took the
part of the girl and declared against the man. It was easy to be seen
that the tracing of the money would go far to solve the mystery; and
accordingly there was a strict search made in Lindsay’s lodgings, as
well as in Effie’s private repositories at home. We need not say with
what effect, where the money was over the Border and away. It was thus
in all views more a case for Astræa than common heads; but then she had
gone to heaven. The Lord Advocate soon saw that the law was likely to
be caught in its own meshes. The first glimpse was got of the danger
of hanging so versatile, so inconsistent, so unsearchable a creature
as a human being on a mere confession of guilt. That that had been the
law of Scotland in all time, nay, that it had been the law of the world
from the beginning, there was no doubt. Who could know the murderer
or the forger better than the murderer or the forger themselves? and
would any one throw away his life on a false plea? The reasoning does
not exhaust the deep subject; there remains the presumption that the
criminal will, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, deny, and deny
boldly. But our case threw a new light on the old law, and the Lord
Advocate was slow to indict where he saw not only reasons for failure,
but also rising difficulties which might strike at the respect upon
which the law was founded.

The affair hung loose for a time; and Lindsay’s friends, anxious to
save him, got him induced to run his letters,--the effect of which is
to give the prosecutor a period wherein to try the culprit, on failure
of which the person charged is free. The same was done by Effie’s
father; but quickened as the Lord Advocate was, the difficulty still
met him like a ghost that would not be laid,--that if he put Effie
at the bar, Lindsay would appear in the witness-box; and if he put
Lindsay on his trial, Effie would swear he was innocent; and as for
two people forging _the same name_, the thing had never been heard of.
And so it came to pass that the authorities at last, feeling they were
in a cleft stick, where if they relieved one hand the other would be
caught, were inclined to liberate both panels. But the bank was at that
time preyed upon by forgeries, and were determined to make an example
now when they had a culprit, or perhaps two. The consequence was,
that the authorities were forced to give way, vindicating their right
of choice as to the party they should arraign. That party was Effie
Carr; and the choice justified itself by two considerations: that she,
by writing and uttering the cheque, was so far committed by evidence
exterior to her self-inculpation; and secondly, that Lindsay might
break down in the witness-box under a searching examination. Effie was
therefore indicted and placed at the bar. She pleaded guilty, but the
prosecutor notwithstanding led evidence; and at length Lindsay appeared
as a witness for the defence. The people who crowded the court had been
aware from report of the condition in which Lindsay stood; but the deep
silence which reigned throughout the hall when he was called to answer
evinced the doubt whether he would stand true to his self-impeachment.
The doubt was soon solved. With a face on which no trace of fear could
be perceived, with a voice in which there was no quaver, he swore
that it was he who signed the draft and sent Effie for the money. The
oscillation of sympathy, which had for a time been suspended, came
round again to the thin pale girl, who sat there looking wistfully and
wonderingly into the face of the witness; and the murmuring approbation
that broke out, in spite of the shrill “Silence” of the crier,
expressed at once admiration of the man--criminal as he swore himself
to be--and pity for the accused. What could the issue be? Effie was
acquitted, and Lindsay sent back to gaol. Was he not to be tried? The
officials felt that the game was dangerous. If Lindsay had stood firm
in the box, had not Effie sat firm at the bar, with the very gallows
in her eye; and would not she, in her turn, be as firm in the box? All
which was too evident; and the consequence in the end came to be, that
Lindsay was in the course of a few days set at liberty.

And now there occurred proceedings not less strange in the house of
John Carr. Lindsay was turned off, because, though he had made a
sacrifice of himself to save the life of Effie, the sacrifice was only
that due to the justice he had offended. The dismissal was against the
protestations of Effie, who alone knew he was innocent; and she had to
bear the further grief of learning that Stormonth had left the city on
the very day whereon she was apprehended--a discovery this too much
for a frame always weak, and latterly so wasted by her confinement in
prison, and the anguish of mind consequent upon her strange position.
And so it came to pass, in a few more days, that she took to her bed,
a wan, wasted, heart-broken creature; but stung as she had been by the
conduct of the man she had offered to die to save, she felt even more
the sting of ingratitude in herself for not divulging to her mother as
much of her secret as would have saved Lindsay from dismissal; for she
was now more and more satisfied that it was the strength of his love
for her that had driven him to his great and perilous sacrifice. Nor
could her mother, as she bent over her daughter, understand why her
liberation should have been followed by so much of sorrow; nay, loving
her as she did, she even reproached her as being ungrateful to God.

“Mother,” said the girl, “I have a secret that lies like a stane upon
my heart. George Lindsay had nae mair to do with that forgery than you.”

“And who had to do with it then, Effie, dear?”

“Myself,” continued the daughter; “I filled up the cheque at the
bidding o’ Robert Stormonth, whom I had lang loved. It was he wha put
my faither’s name to it. It was to him I gave the money, to relieve him
from debt, and he has fled.”

“Effie, Effie!” cried the mother; “and we have done this thing to
George Lindsay--ta’en from him his basket and his store, yea, the bread
o’ his mouth, in recompense for trying to save your life by offering
his ain.”

“Yes, mother,” added Effie; “but we must make that wrang richt.”

“And mair, lass,” rejoined the mother, as she rose abruptly and
nervously, and hurried to her husband, to whom she told the strange
intelligence. Then John Carr was a just man as well as a loving parent;
and while he forgave his unfortunate daughter, he went and brought
back George Lindsay to his old place that very night; nor did he or
Mrs Carr know the joy they had poured into the heart of the young
man, for the reason that they did not know the love he bore to their
daughter. But if this was a satisfaction to Effie, in so far as it
relieved her heart of a burden, it brought to her a burden of another
kind. The mother soon saw how matters stood with the heart of Lindsay,
and she moreover saw that her or her daughter’s gratitude could not be
complete so long as he was denied the boon of being allowed to marry
the girl he had saved from the gallows; and she waited her opportunity
of breaking the delicate subject to Effie. It was not time yet, when
Effie was an invalid; and even so far wasted and worn as to cause
apprehensions of her ultimate fate, even death; nor perhaps would that
time ever come when she could bear to hear the appeal without pain; for
though Stormonth had ruined her character and her peace of mind--nay,
had left her in circumstances almost unprecedented for treachery,
baseness, and cruelty--he retained still the niche where the offerings
of a first love had been made: his image had been indeed burned into
the virgin heart, and no other form of man’s face, though representing
the possessor of beauty, wealth, and worldly honours, would ever take
away that treasured symbol. It haunted her even as a shadow of herself,
which, disappearing at sundown, comes again at the rise of the moon;
nay, she would have been contented to make other sacrifices equally
great as that which she had made; nor wild moors, nor streams, nor
rugged hills, would have stopped her in an effort to look upon him once
more, and replace that inevitable image by the real vision, which had
first taken captive her young heart.

But time passed, bringing the usual ameliorations to the miserable.
Effie got so far better in health that she became able to resume, in
a languid way, her former duties, with the exception of those of “the
gentle clerk”--for of these she had had enough; even the very look of
a bank-draft brought a shudder over her; nor would she have entered
the Bank of Scotland again, even with a good cheque for a thousand
pounds to have been all her own. Meanwhile the patient George had plied
a suit which he could only express by his eyes, or the attentions of
one who worships; but he never alluded, even in their conversations,
to the old sacrifice. The mother too, and not less the father, saw the
advantages that might result as well to the health of her mind as that
of her body. They had waited--a vain waiting--for the wearing out of
the traces of the obdurate image: and when they thought they might take
placidity as the sign of what they waited for, they first hinted, and
then expressed in plain terms, the wishes of their hearts. For a time
all their efforts were fruitless; but John Carr, getting old and weak,
wished to be succeeded in his business by George; and the wife, when
she became a widow, would require to be maintained,--reasons which had
more weight with Effie than any others, excepting always the act of
George’s self-immolation at the shrine in which his fancy had placed
her. The importunities at length wore out her resistings, without
effacing the lines of the old and still endeared image; and she gave
a cold, we may say reluctant, consent. The bride’s “ay” was a sigh,
the rapture a tear of sadness. But George was pleased even with this:
Effie, the long-cherished Effie, was at length his.

In her new situation Effie Carr--now Mrs Lindsay--performed all the
duties of a good and faithful wife; by an effort of the will no doubt,
though in another sense only a sad obedience to necessity, of which
we are all, as the creatures of motives, the very slaves. But the old
image resisted the appeals of her reason, as well as the blandishments
of a husband’s love. She was only true, faithful, and kind, till
the birth of a child lent its reconciling power to the efforts of
duty. Some time afterwards John Carr died--an event which carried in
its train the subsequent death of his wife. There was left to the
son-in-law a dwindling business, and a very small sum of money; for the
father had met with misfortunes in his declining years, which impaired
health prevented him from resisting. Time wore on, and showed that
the power of the martyr-spirit is not always that of the champion of
worldly success; for it was now but a struggle between George Lindsay,
with a stained name, and the stern demon of misfortune. He was at
length overtaken by poverty, which, as affecting Effie, preyed so
relentlessly upon his spirits, that within two years he followed John
Carr to the grave. Effie was now left with two children to the work
of her fingers, a poor weapon wherewith to beat off the wolf of want;
and even this was curtailed by the effects of the old crime, which the
public still kept in green remembrance.

Throughout, our story has been the sensationalism of angry Fate,
and even less likely to be believed than the work of fiction. Nor
was the vulture face of the Nemesis yet smoothed down. The grief of
her bereavement had only partially diverted Effie’s mind from the
recollections of him who had ruined her, and yet could not be hated by
her, nay, could not be but loved by her. The sensitised nerve, which
had received the old image, gave it out fresh again to the reviving
power of memory, and this was only a continuation of what had been a
corroding custom of years and years. But as the saying goes, it is a
long road that does not offer by its side the spreading bough of shade
to the way-worn traveller. One day, when Effie was engaged with her
work, of which she was as weary as of the dreaming which accompanied
it, there appeared before her, without premonition or foreshadowing
sign, Robert Stormonth, of Kelton, dressed as a country gentleman,
booted, and with a whip in his hand.

“Are you Effie Carr?”

The question was useless to one who was already lying back in her chair
in a state of unconsciousness, from which she recovered only to open
her eyes and avert them, and shut them and open them again, like the
victim of epilepsy.

“And do you fear me?” said the excited man, as he took her in his
strong arms and stared wildly into her face; “I have more reason to
fear you, whom I ruined,” he continued. “Ay, brought within the verge
of the gallows. I know it all, Effie. Open your eyes, dear soul, and
smile once more upon me. Nay, I have known it for years, during which
remorse has scourged me through the world. Look up, dear Effie, while
I tell you I could bear the agony no longer; and now opportunity
favours the wretched penitent, for my father is dead, and I am not only
my own master, but master of Kelton, of which you once heard me speak.
Will you not look up yet, dear Effie? I come to make amends to you,
not by wealth merely, but to offer you again that love I once bore to
you, and still bear. Another such look, dear; it is oil to my parched
spirit. You are to consent to be my wife--the very smallest boon I dare
offer.”

During which strange rambling speech Effie was partly insensible; yet
she heard enough to afford her clouded mind a glimpse of her condition,
and of the meaning of what was said to her. For a time she kept staring
into his face as if she had doubts of his real personality; nor could
she find words to express even those more collected thoughts that began
to gather into form.

“Robert Stormonth,” at length she said, calmly, “and have you suffered
too? Oh, this is more wonderful to me than a’ the rest o’ these
wonderful things.”

“As no man ever suffered, dear Effie,” he answered. “I was on the eve
of coming to you, when a friend I retained here wrote me to London of
your marriage with the man who saved you from the fate into which I
precipitated you. How I envied that man who offered to die for you! He
seemed to take from me my only means of reparation; nay, my only chance
of happiness. But he is dead. Heaven give peace to so noble a spirit!
And now you are mine. It is mercy I come to seek in the first instance;
the love--if that, after all that is past, is indeed possible--I will
take my chance of that.”

“Robert,” cried the now weeping woman, “if that love had been aince
less, what misery I would have been spared! Ay, and my father, and
mother, and poor George Lindsay; a’ helped awa to the grave by my
crime, for it stuck to us to the end.” And she buried her head in his
bosom, sobbing piteously.

“_My_ crime, dear Effie, not yours,” said he. “It was you who saved
my life; and if Heaven has a kindlier part than another for those who
err by the fault of others, it will be reserved for one who made a
sacrifice to love. But we have, I hope, something to enjoy before you
go there, and as yet I have not got your forgiveness.”

“It is yours--it is yours, Robert,” was the sobbing answer. “Ay, and
with it a’ the love I ever had for you.”

“Enough for this time, dear Effie,” said he. “My horse waits for me.
Expect me to-morrow at this hour with a better-arranged purpose.”
And folding her in his arms, and kissing her fervently, even as
his remorse were thereby assuaged as well as his love gratified,
he departed, leaving Effie to thoughts we should be sorry to think
ourselves capable of putting into words. Nor need we say more than that
Stormonth kept his word. Effie Carr was in a few days Mrs Stormonth,
and in not many more the presiding female power in the fine residence
of Kelton.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of Mary Mochrie and the Miracle of the Cod.


It was said that David Hume’s barber, who had the honour of shaving
the philosopher every morning, was so scandalised by David’s Essay
on Miracles, that he told him to his face--which he was smoothing at
the time--that Mary Mochrie’s miracle shut his mouth. And no doubt
this was so far true, for the shaver took care while he was telling
the story to hold David’s lips close with his left hand, while he
was plying his razor with the other. David, we are informed, used to
tell this anecdote himself along with the story of the modern miracle
appended to it; and as the latter is a good example of the easy way by
which the blind sentiment of wonder groping for light comes to refer
strange things to Divine interposition, and consequently the facility
of belief in those darker times, we may include among our stories for
the amusement of our readers that of the miracle, which, goes in this
wise:--

On a fine day in the month of June a certain Miss Isabella Warrender,
the daughter of a respectable burgess, bethought herself of the luxury
of a plunge in the Forth, on the sands to the west of Newhaven, and
with a view to safety, as well as companionship, she behoved to
take with her her father’s trusty servant, Mary Mochrie. The blue
bathing-gowns were accordingly put into the basket, and away they went
on their journey of two miles with heads “as light as lavrocks,” and
thinking of no other miracle in the world than that of enjoyment--a
veritable miracle to many, insomuch as it is to them in this world of
doubtful happiness and real misery miraculously scarce. Nor was it
long, with their light feet, ere they reached their destination; all
things, too, being otherwise propitious, for the sun was shining in a
clear sky, the surface of the sea was as smooth as glass, and like a
mirror reflected the rays of the sun; so that, to speak figuratively,
Apollo and Neptune were on the best of terms, as if they had resolved
to favour specially on that day so fair a specimen of an earthly maid,
who, for a time, was to become a water nymph. So, after looking out
from beneath her curls for Peeping Toms,--of whom, by the way, to
the honour of Scotland, our Godivas in these parts have little to
complain,--Isabella got herself made as like Musidora as possible, in
which condition she remained only for that single moment occupied by
Mary in investing her with the said blue gown. Whereupon, Mary having
also divested herself of her clothes, was as quickly reclaimed from the
searching eyes of the upper of the two propitious gods by her young
mistress helping her on with her sea dress.

All which sacrifices to _Bona Dea_ are pretty uniform, if we may not
say that, although young women have as good a right to outrage modesty
by splashing about perfectly nude in the sea as the men have, they
know better than do any such naughty thing. Nor, perhaps, was it any
exception, that as they went into the sea they took each other by the
hand, just as Adam and Eve did when they walked hand in hand into a
flood of sin, as enticing to them, too, as the shining water was to our
virgins--a comparison more true than you may be at present thinking.
Then having got up to the middle--that is, in a sense, half seas over,
they got into that sportive mood which belongs to bathers, as if an
infection from the playful element; and, of course, they could not
avoid the usual ducking, which is performed by the two taking hold of
both hands, and alternately or simultaneously dipping themselves over
head, and as they emerge shaking their locks as the ducks do their
wings when they come out of the water. All which was very pleasant,
as might have been apparent from the laughing and screighing which
terrified the Tom Norries there and then flying over their heads; but
it so happened that in one of these see-saws Isabella’s foot slipped,
and the consequence was that her hands slipped also out of those of
Mary, so that she fell back into the water, more afraid, of course,
than hurt; nor was this all, for no sooner had Isabella got on her feet
again than holding out her left hand she cried in rather a wild way
that she had lost her ruby ring--nay, that very ring which a certain
George Ballennie had given her as a pledge of his love, and the loss
of which was so like an augury of evil. And then as it was Mary’s hand
which pulled it off, or rather Isabella’s that left it in Mary’s, it
was natural she should ask at the same time whether Mary had it or had
felt it, but Mary asserted that she had it not, neither had she felt it
when coming off. So if Mary was honest it behoved to be in the sea, and
in all likelihood would never be found again.

And thus the pleasant act of bathing was interrupted in the very
middle, for how could there be any more splashing and tumbling and
mermaiding with this terrible loss weighing upon Isabella’s heart? She
would not know how to face her mother; and as for Ballennie, might
he not think that she who would not take better care of a love-token
had no great love on her part to be betokened by a ring or anything
else. The very sea which a moment before was as beautiful as a blushing
bride holding out her arms for the embrace of the bridegroom, became as
hateful to her as a Fury, and, hastening to the bank with tears in her
eyes, which, of course, could not be seen, she began to dress. Mary,
who seemed to participate in her young mistress’s sorrow, commenced
the same operation; but when the clothes were on what was to be done?
The tide was ebbing, and an hour, or at most two, would discover the
channel at the spot where the unlucky slip was made, but to remain all
that time would produce uneasiness at home, and there appeared to be
nothing for it but for the young lady to go to Edinburgh, and leave
Mary to wait for the ebbing of the tide, and make a search among the
shingle for the valuable article.

A plan accordingly carried out. Mary certainly awaited the ebb, and did
make a search among the gravel, but whether that search was conducted
in that assiduous way followed by those who are lighted in their travel
by the Lamp of Hope, it is not for us at present to say. Certain at
least it is that Mary did not seem very greatly disappointed at her
failure in not finding Isabella’s precious love-token, for which want
of feeling we do not require to go very deep into Mary’s breast, or any
other body’s breast, seeing she was a woman, and had a lover of her
own, even George Gallie, as good as Ballennie any day. True, he had
never given her a ruby ring; though, as for that, he would if he could,
and if he couldn’t how could he? So Mary was on a par with Isabella in
that matter; still, we confess, she might have searched more carefully,
unless, indeed, we are to be so ungallant as to believe that she had in
her mind some foregone secret conclusion that the ring was not there to
be found.

Nor, what is almost as strange, did Mary take up her basket and
commence her journey homeward in that saddened way which belongs to
deep disappointment. Nay, we are not sure but that the words of the old
song of her whose ring had been stolen by a mermaid, were conned by
Mary to herself as she trudged homewards,--

  “And sair she moiled, and sair she toiled,
    To find the ring lost in the sea,
  And still the thought within her wrought
    That she would never married be.”

But there was something else in her head when she reached the house,
where she met some very suspicious looks not only from Isabella, but
also from Mrs Warrender, for we may as well confess that the daughter
had told her mother that when the slip of the hand took place she
felt as if the ring had been taken off by the hand of Mary. And then
when Mary appeared with a lugubrious face, and reported that she had
not found the ring in the shingle, the foresaid suspicion was so
much confirmed, that very little more would be required to induce
Mr Warrender to make some judicial investigation into the strange
circumstance. An inauspicious afternoon and night for Mary, and not
less the next day, when she was called into the dining-room, and so
sharply interrogated by Mr Warrender, that she cried very bitterly, all
the time asserting that she never felt her hand touch the ring, and
that it had most certainly fallen into the water and been lost. But Mr
Warrender was not a man who believed in tears, at least women’s; for he
was ungallant enough to think, that as we cannot distinguish _ex parte
rei_ between those of anger and those of sorrow, and as there is a kind
called crocodile, as limpid as the others, and just as like a pretty
dewdrop, so they never can or ought to be received as evidence either
of guilt or innocence. And so it came about, that as the hours passed
the conviction grew stronger and stronger in the minds of the family
that the meek, and church-going, and psalm-singing Mary Mochrie was a
thief.

Of this latter fact, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, there
could be no evidence beyond the finding of the missing article, either
on Mary’s person or in some place under her power, for Isabella’s word
could not go for much; and so it was resolved that Mary’s person and
trunk should be searched. A very strong step in the case of a girl
who had hitherto held a very good character, and probably altogether
unjustifiable, where so powerful an abstractor of earthly things as
Neptune was apparently as much in the scrape as Mary. Yet this strong
thing was done _illotis manibus_, and, as might have been expected,
with no effect beyond scandalising Mary, who went so far as to say that
Heaven took care of its own, and that God would in His own time and way
show her persecutors that she was as innocent as that babe unborn, who
takes away and places, nobody knows where, so many of the wickednesses
of the world. But then an assertion of innocence in the grand style
of an appeal to the Deity sometimes piques a prosecutor, because it
conveys an imputation that the accused one is better taken care of by
Heaven than he is; and so it turned out here, for Mr Warrender felt
as if he had been challenged to the ultimate trial by ordeal, and he
straightway proceeded to take measures for having Mary apprehended upon
the charge of having robbed his daughter of the much-prized ring.

These measures were taken as they had been resolved upon, and here
it behoves us, for a reason which may appear by and by, to be so
particular as to say, that the officer was to come in the morning after
breakfast to convey the alleged culprit to the office of the public
prosecutor, for the purpose, in the first place, of examination. Nor
was Mary unprepared, nay, she was not even to all appearance very
much put about, for she had gone about her work as usual, and having
finished what she had to do as maid-of-all-work--cook, scullery-maid,
and scrub--she began to make preparations for cutting-up and gutting,
and scraping, and washing the large cod, which lay upon the dresser
ready for these operations, and which, by the way, Mrs Warrender had
that morning, an hour before, bought for the sum of one and sixpence,
from a Jenny Mucklebacket, of the village of Newhaven--another
particular fact which we are bound to apologise for on the foresaid
plea of necessity, lest we might incur the charge of wishing to
produce an effect by Dutch painting. But Mary’s services as to the
cod were dispensed with by Mrs Warrender, if they were not actually
resented as either a bribe to forego the prosecution, or a cold-blooded
indifference assumed for the purpose of showing her innocence. And so
when the officer came Mary was hurried away to undergo this terrible
ordeal, which, whatever other effect it might have, could not fail to
leave her marked with the very burning irons that might not inflict the
punishment due to robbery.

Leaving Mrs Warrender with the cod, which is as indispensable to our
legend as a frying-pan to a Dutch interior, or the bone of a pig to
a saint’s legend, we follow the prisoner to the office of the man
who is a terror to evil-doers. Mr Warrender was there as the private
prosecutor, and Isabella as a witness, or rather _the_ witness. On
being seated, the fiscal asked Mary, whether, on the day of the
bathing, she had not seen the said ring on the finger of her young
mistress; whereto Mary answered in the affirmative. Then came the
application of the Lydian stone, in the form of the question, whether
she did not, at the foresaid time and place, abstract the said ring
from the finger of Isabella when she held her hand in the process of
dipping; but Mary was here negative and firm, asserting that she did
not, and giving emphasis to her denial by adding, that God knew she
was as innocent as the foresaid babe. In spite of all which, Isabella
insisted that she had been robbed in the manner set forth. The fiscal
saw at once that the whole case lay between the two young women, and
recommended Mr Warrender to let go the prosecution as one which must
fail for defect of evidence; but that gentleman, for the reason that
he had so far committed himself, and also for that he was annoyed at
what he called the impudence of a servant disputing the word of his
daughter, and calling her, in effect, a liar, insisted upon his right,
as the protector and curator of his daughter, of having the culprit
committed to jail, in the expectation that, through some medium of the
three magic balls, or otherwise, he would get more evidence of the
crime. The fiscal had no alternative; and so Mary Mochrie was taken to
the Tolbooth, with the ordinary result, in the first place, of the news
going up and down the long street which then formed the city, that Mrs
Warrender’s servant was imprisoned for the strange crime of abstracting
from Miss Warrender’s finger, while bathing, the love-token given to
her by her intended. There was, doubtless, about the tale just so much
of romance that would serve it as wings to carry it wherever gossip was
acceptable--and we would like to know where in that city it was not
acceptable then, and where it is not acceptable now.

Meanwhile Mrs Warrender had been very busy with the mute person of our
drama--the cod--in which, like the devil in the story who had bargained
for a sinner and having got a saint instead, had half resolved to
follow the advice of Burns and “take a thought and mend,” she had got
so much more than she bargained for with the fishwife that she was,
when Mr Warrender and Isabella entered, ready to faint. They found
her sitting in a chair scarcely able to move, under no less an agency
than the fear of God. Her breath came and went with difficulty through
lips with that degree of paleness which lips have a special tendency
to take on, an expression of awe was over her face, and in her hand
she held that identical ruby ring for the supposed theft of which the
unfortunate Mary had been hurried to jail, and as for being able to
speak she was as mute as the flounder in the proverb that never spoke
but once; all she could do was to hold up the ring and point to the
cod upon the dresser. But all in vain, for Mr Warrender could not see
through the terrible mystery, nay, surely the most wonderful thing
that had ever happened in this lower world since the time when the
whale cast up Jonah just where and when he was wanted, till at length
Mrs Warrender was enabled to utter a few broken words to the effect
that the ring had been found in the stomach of the fish. Then, to be
sure, all was plain enough--the cod was a chosen instrument in the
hands of the great Author of Justice sent by a special message to save
Mary Mochrie from the ruin which awaited her under a false charge. The
conviction was easy in proportion to the charm which supernaturalism
always holds over man--

  “True miracles are more believed
  The more they cannot be conceived;”

and we are to remember that the last witch had not been burnt at the
time of our story. But what made this Divine interposition the more
serious to the house of the Warrenders, the message from above was sent
as direct as a letter by post, only not prepaid, for Mrs Warrender had
paid for the fish; and so it was equally plain that a duty was thus put
upon Mr Warrender of no ordinary kind.

Nor was he long in obeying the command. Taking the wonderful ring
along with him he hurried away to the office he had so lately left,
and told the miraculous tale to the man of prosecutions. And what
although that astute personage smiled at the story, just as if he
would have said, if he had thought it worth his while, “Was there any
opportunity for Mary Mochrie handling the cod?”--it was only the small
whipcord of scepticism applied to the posteriors of the rhinoceros of
superstition, even that instinct in poor man to be eternally looking
up into the blank sky for special providences. So Mr Warrender, now
himself a holy instrument, got what he wanted--an order to the jailer
for Mary’s liberation. So away he went; and as he went to the Tolbooth
he told every acquaintance he met the exciting story--among others
his own clergyman of the Greyfriars, who held up his hands and said,
“Wonderful are the ways of God! Yea, this very thing hath a purpose in
it, even that of utterly demolishing that arch sceptic David Hume’s
soul-destroying Essay on Miracles. I will verily take up the subject
the next Sabbath.” And thus, dropping the germs as he went, which
formed a revolving radius line from the centre of the mystery--his
own house--the consequence was that the miracle of the cod went like
wildfire wherever there was the fuel of a predisposing superstition;
and where, we repeat, was that not then? where is not now, despite of
David with all his genius--the first and best of the anti-Positivists,
because he was a true Pyrrhonean. Having got to the jail, Mr Warrender
informed Mary of this wonderful turn of providence in her favour,
whereat Mary, as a matter of course, held up her hands in great wonder
and admiration.

But Mr Warrender was not, by this act of justice, yet done with Mary.
It behoved him to take her home and restore her to her place, with
a character not only cleared of all imputation, but illustrated by
the shining light of the favour of Heaven; and so he accompanied her
down the thronged High Street,--an act which partook somewhat of the
procession of a saint, whereat people stared; nay, many who had heard
of the miracle went up and shook hands with one who was the favourite
of the Great Disposer of events. Nor did her honours end with this
display; for when they reached the house they found it filled with
acquaintances, and even strangers, all anxious to see the wonderful
fish, and the ring, and the maid. In the midst of all which honours
Mary looked as simple as a Madonna; and if she winked it was only
with one eye, and the winking was to herself. Even here her honours
that day did not terminate, for she behoved for once to dine with the
family--not on the cod, which was reserved as something sacred, like
the small fishes offered by the Phaselites to their gods--but on a
jolly leg of lamb, as a recompense for the breakfast of which she had
that morning been deprived. Nay, as for the cod, in place of being
eaten, it stood a risk of being pickled, and carried off to help the
exchequer of some poor Catholic community in the land of miracles.

But probably the most wonderful part of our history consists in this
fact, that no one ever hinted at the propriety of having recourse to
the easiest and most natural way of solving a knot so easily tied; but
we have only to remember another mystery--that of the gullibility of
man when under the hunger of superstition. Nor need we say that the
maw of a cod, big and omnivorous as it is, never equalled that of the
miracle-devourer’s, possessing, as it does, too, the peculiarity of
keeping so long that which is accepted. Wherein it resembles the purse
of the miser, the click of the spring of which is the sign of perpetual
imprisonment. We only hear the subsequent jingle of the coin, and the
jingle in our present instance might have lasted for twenty years,
during all which time Mary Mochrie’s miracle might have served as the
best answer to the Essay of the renowned sceptic.

And thus we are brought back to the anecdote with which we set out. The
story we have told is, in all its essentials, that which Donald Gorm,
David Hume’s barber, treated him to on that morning when he wanted to
close up for ever the mouth of the arch sceptic. It is not easy to
smile while under the hands of a story-telling barber, for the reason
that the contracted muscle runs a risk of being still more contracted
by a slice being taken off it by a resolute razor moving in straight
lines, so that probably it was not till Donald had finished both the
story and the shaving, that David dared to indulge in that good-natured
smile with which he used to meet his opponents, even in the teeth of
the Gael’s oath, “’Tis a miracle, py Cot,”--a word this latter which,
in Donald’s humour, might stand for the word cod, as well as for
another too sacred to be here mentioned.

Yet the philosopher had further occasion for his good-humoured
reticence, with which, as is well known, he declared he would alone
meet the censors of his Essay, for it was really on the occasion of
this great religious sensation in the city that the washer-women at
the “Nor’ Loch” threatened to “dook him,” for the reason that, as they
had heard, he had not only written that detestable Essay to prove
that no miracles (for they were ungenerous enough to pay no attention
to his _very_ grave exception of the real Bible ones) could ever
be, but he had actually gone the extreme length of disbelieving the
intervention of God to save the innocent Mary Mochrie from the Moloch
of the criminal law. We need not be unassured that this additional
bit of gossip, as it spread though the city, would only tend to the
inflammation that already prevailed. Nor need we wonder at all this,
when we remember the play of metaphysical wit, which was received as
very serious by the vulgar,--that David believed in nothing, except
that there was no God.

But the mind of the Edinburgh public was not destined to cool down
before it underwent further combustion. It happened that a certain
person of the name of Gallie, a common working jeweller in World’s End
Close, was possessed of knowledge which he had picked up on the road
to Newhaven, whither he had been going to bathe, on that very morning
when the miraculous ring was lost, and which knowledge, he thought,
being a knowing fellow, he could turn to account in the midst of the
heat of collision between the miracle-mongers and the sceptics, even
as he might have transmuted by the fire of the furnace a piece of base
metal into gold; and he took a strange way to effect his purpose.
Having first called on Mr Warrender and got a sight of the magic ring,
he next wrote an advertisement, which he got printed in the form of
the small posters of that day of Lilliputian bills. It ran in these
terms:--“Mary Mochrie’s Miracle.--If any one is anxious to learne the
trew secret of this reputyd miracle, let him or her, mann or woman, hye
to the closs of ye Warld’s End, where Michael Gallie resideth, and on
ye payement of one shilling they will hear somethyng that will astonie
them; but not one to tell ye other upon his aith.”

Copies of this bill Gallie posted on several walls in the most crowded
parts of the city, and the consequence was such a crowd at World’s
End Close as might have been looked for if the close had really been
the last refuge from a conflagration of another kind. The applicants
got their turn of entry; every one came out with a face expressive of
wonder, yet so true were they to their oath, that no one would tell a
word he had heard behind the veil of Gallie’s mystery, so that the
curiosity of the outsiders, who wanted to save their shillings, became
inflamed by pique in addition to curiosity. The secret took on the
sacred and cabalistic character of a mystery, and the mystery feeding,
as it always does, upon whispers and ominous looks, increased as the
hours passed. Nor can we wonder at an excitement which had religion at
the bottom of it, and the vanquishment of the soul-destroying David
for the fruitful and ultimate issue. It was only the high price of
admission which limited the number of Gallie’s shillings, for during
the entire day the stern obligation of an oath proved the stern honesty
of a religious people. It was said--and I see no reason to doubt the
truth of the report--that Dr Robertson and many others of the educated
classes caught the infection and paid their shilling; but we may doubt
if the imperturbable David would risk his body or trouble his spirit by
looking into the mysterious close of the World’s End.

As to what took place within Gallie’s room, it would seem that the
ingenious fellow, when he saw the heather on fire, set his gins for the
hares and conies in such a way as to catch them by dozens. He allowed
the room to fill, and having administered the oath to two or three
dozen at a time, he contrived during the course of the day to bag more
shillings than there might have been supposed to be fools or religious
enthusiasts even in superstitious Edinburgh. Afterwards, when rumour
became busy with his gains, it was said that he was thereby enabled
to set up the famous silversmith’s shop that so long, under the name
of “Gallie and Son,” occupied a prominent front in the High Street,
between Halkerston’s Wynd and Milne’s Entry.

But as all things that depend upon mere human testimony must ultimately
be left insoluble, except as belief makes an election and decision,
so even the revelation of the prophet Gallie did not settle the
great question of Mochrie _versus_ Hume, for Gallie could offer no
corroboration of the testimony of which he contrived to make a little
fortune. That revelation came to be known very well the next day,
probably from the softening and tongue-loosening influence of Edinburgh
ale exercised upon even gnarled and cross-grained Presbyterians; and we
need be under no doubt that Donald Gorm, when he shaved the philosopher
next morning, was in full possession of the secret, though we might be
entitled to hold pretty fast by the suspicion that he would not court
another smile from David by recounting to him the destruction of his,
Donald’s, theory of the miracle.

With an apology for having kept the reader too long from a knowledge
of Gallie’s revelation, we now proceed to give it as it was currently
reported. It seemed that on that morning when the two girls went
to bathe, Gallie had left Edinburgh for the same purpose about an
hour later--a statement probable enough, although not attempted to
be supported by any evidence. When about halfway on his journey, he
met Mary Mochrie, who, strangely enough, though perfectly true, was
his sweetheart. After some talk about the kind of bathe she had had,
Mary showed him a ring, which she said she had bought from an old Jew
broker on the previous day, and which she regretted was too wide for
her finger. She then asked him to take it home with him and reduce it.
Gallie having taken the ring into his hand started the moment he fixed
his eye upon it.

“That ring,” said he, for, notwithstanding his scheme to make capital
out of superstition, of which he was an enemy, he was an honest
fellow,--“that ring belongs to your young mistress; and the reason I
know this is that I fixed the ruby in it for her not yet a fortnight
since.”

Taken thus aback, Mary began to prevaricate, saying that Miss Isabella
Warrender had given it to her.

“That cannot be,” said Gallie, “because she told me it was a present
from her lover, George Ballennie, to whom she is to be married.”

Words which Gallie uttered in a solemn if not sorrowful tone, and a
look indicating displeasure and disappointment at thus detecting in the
woman whom he had intended to marry, both theft and falsehood. Nor were
these words left unrequited, for the fiery girl, snatching the ring out
of his hand, called him a liar, besides taunting him with a certain
pendulous attitude which his father, old Gallie, had assumed somewhere
about the precincts of the Tolbooth immediately before dying. The
cruel remark was one of those combinations of sharp words which have a
tendency to stick, especially where the brain to which they adhere has
been previously occupied by love, and so Gallie, muttering to himself a
determination to be revenged, parted from her for ever, and proceeded
on his way to Newhaven.

Things in this world being so arranged that one person’s misfortune
or wretchedness becomes another person’s opportunity, we may see how
Gallie came to his purpose. Perhaps he might not have thought it worth
his pains to expose his own sweetheart from a mere feeling of revenge,
but when he came to find that the woman who had cast up to him his
father’s misfortune, had taken or been put into the position of an
instrument of God’s grace, that the public had been by her precipitated
into a superstitious enthusiasm--a species of feeling which he hated,
(for who knows but that he might have been descended from that older
Gallio who deserved to have been hanged?) and that he saw by the clear
vision of ingenuity that he could revenge himself as to Mary, and make
himself rich at the expense of the fools whom he despised, he fell upon
the adroit scheme which we have so faithfully recorded.

We have already also said that the oath of secrecy which Gallie had
imposed on his dupes was dispensed with by some of the “loose-fish”
who could not be so easily caught as the devout cod. But this did not
end the controversy, for it immediately took the form of a contest
between the Gallieites and the Mochrieites, and the fury of the contest
having drawn the attention of the officials of the law, Mary was
again apprehended, with the view to be indicted for the theft of the
ring, provided any corroborative testimony could be got in support
of the statement of Gallie, who was forced to make his revelation to
the fiscal, this one time without a shilling. The Scotch people are
blessed or cursed with a metaphysical tendency, and this may be the
reason of their peculiar faith, as well as of their old suspicion of
human testimony in the courts of law. One witness has never been
received in Scotland as good for anything, if standing alone; and when
we look to the samples of humanity that meet us every day, so nicely
poised between truth and falsehood, that the weight of a Queen Anne’s
farthing would decide the inclination to the one side or the other, we
are apt to think our judges rather sagacious. Perhaps they thought of
themselves in these palmy days when they took bribes, and considered
them very good and gracious things, too, in their own way. But be all
that as it may, the evidence of Gallie was not corroborated in any way;
the ring might have been put into the cod’s mouth by Isabella Warrender
herself to ruin Mary. Woman can do such things; and Gallie’s accusation
might have been the consequence of Mary’s allusion to the fate of his
father. The result, accordingly, was, that Mary Mochrie was dismissed.
Yet even here the affair did not end, for some people received her with
open arms, as being a vessel of mercy.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of the Pelican.


Though not so much a tradition as a memory still fresh probably in the
minds of some of the good old Edinburgh folks, we here offer, chiefly
for the benefit of our young female readers who are fond of a story
wherein little heroines figure, as in Béranger’s “Sylphide,” an account
of a very famous adventure of a certain little Jeannie Deans in our
city--the more like the elder Jeannie, inasmuch as they both were
concerned in a loving effort to save the life of a sister. Whereunto,
as a very necessary introduction, it behoves us to set forth that
there was, some sixty years ago, more or less, a certain Mr William
Maconie, who was a merchant on the South Bridge of Edinburgh, but who,
for the sake of exercise and fresh air,--a commodity this last he need
not have gone so far from the Calton Hill to seek--resided at Juniper
Green, a little village three or four miles from St Giles’s. Nor did
this distance incommode him much, seeing that he had the attraction to
quicken his steps homewards of a pretty young wife and two little twin
daughters, Mary and Annie, as like each other as two rosebuds partially
opened, and as like their mother, too, as the objects of our simile are
to themselves when full blown.

Peculiar in this respect of having twins at the outset, and sisters
too--a good beginning of a contract to perpetuate the species--Mr
Maconie was destined to be even more so, inasmuch as there came no
more of these pleasant _deliciæ domi_, at least up to the time of
our curious story--a circumstance the more to be regretted by the
father in consequence of a strange fancy (never told to his wife)
that possessed him of wishing to insure the lives of his children as
they came into the world, or at least after they had got through the
rather uninsurable period of mere infant life. And in execution of this
fancy--a very fair and reasonable one, and not uncommon at that time,
whatever it may be now, when people are not so provident--he had got an
insurance to the extent of five hundred pounds effected in the Pelican
Office--perhaps the most famous at that time--on the lives of the said
twins, Mary and Annie, who were, no doubt, altogether unconscious of
the importance they were thus made to hold in the world.

Yet, unfortunately for the far-seeing and provident father, this scheme
threatened to fructify sooner than he wished, if indeed it could ever
have fructified to his satisfaction; for the grisly spectre of Typhus
laid his relentless hand upon Mary when she--and of a consequence
Annie--was somewhere about eight years old. And surely, being as we are
very hopeful optimists in the cause of human nature, we need not say
that the father, as he and his wife watched the suffering invalid on
through the weary days and nights of the progress towards the crisis
of that dangerous ailment, never once thought of the Pelican, except
as a bird that feeds its young with the warm blood of its breast.
But, sorrowful as they were, their grief was nothing in comparison
with the distress of little Annie, who slipped about listening and
making all manner of anxious inquiries about her sick sister, whom she
was prohibited from seeing for fear of her being touched by the said
spectre; nor was her heart the less troubled with fears for her life,
that all things seemed so quiet and mysterious about the house--the
doctor coming and going, and the father and mother whispering to each
other, but never to her, and their faces so sad-like and mournful, in
place of being, as was their wont, so cheerful and happy.

And surely all this solicitude on the part of Annie Maconie need not
excite our wonder, when we consider that, from the time of their
birth, the twin sisters had never been separated; but that, from the
moment they had made their entrance on this world’s stage, they had
been always each where the other was, and had run each where the other
ran, wished each what the other wished, and wept and laughed each when
the other wept or laughed. Nature, indeed, before it came into her
fickle head to make two of them, had, in all probability, intended
these little sisters--“little cherries on one stalk”--to be but one;
and they could only be said not to be _one_, because of their bodies
being two--a circumstance of no great importance, for, in spite of the
duality of body, the spirit that animated them was a unity, and as we
know from an old philosopher called Plato, the spirit is really the
human creature, the flesh and bones constituting the body being nothing
more than a mere husk intended at the end to feed worms. And then the
mother helped this sameness by dressing them so like each other, as if
she wanted to make a “Comedy of Errors” out of the two little female
Dromios.

But in the middle of this mystery and solicitude, it happened that
Annie was to get some light; for at breakfast one morning--not yet
that of the expected crisis--when her father and mother were talking
earnestly in an undertone to each other, all unaware that the child,
as she was moving about, was watching their words and looks, much as
an older victim of credulity may be supposed to hang on the cabalistic
movements and incantations of a sibyl, the attentive little listener
eagerly drank in every word of the following conversation:--

“The doctor is so doubtful,” said the anxious mother, with a tear in
her eye, “that I have scarcely any hope; and if she is taken away, the
very look of Annie, left alone ‘bleating for her sister lamb,’ will
break my heart altogether.”

“Yes,” rejoined Mr Maconie, “it would be hard to bear; but,”--and
it was the first time since Mary’s illness he had ever remembered
the insurance,--“it was wise that I insured poor Mary’s life in the
Pelican.”

“Insured her life in the Pelican!” echoed the wife, in a higher tone.
“That was at least lucky; but, oh! I hope we will not need to have our
grief solaced by that comfort in affliction for many a day.”

And this colloquy had scarcely been finished when the doctor entered,
having gone previously into the invalid’s room, with a very mournful
expression upon his face; nor did his words make that expression any
more bearable, as he said--

“I am sorry to say I do not like Mary’s appearance so well to-day. I
fear it is to be one of those cases where we cannot discover anything
like a crisis at all; indeed, I have doubts about this old theory being
applicable to this kind of fever, where the virus goes on gradually
working to the end.”

“The end!” echoed Mrs Maconie; “then, doctor, I fear you see what that
will be.”

“I would not like to say,” added he; “but I fear you must make up your
mind for the worst.”

Now, all this was overheard by Annie, who, we may here seize the
opportunity of saying, was, in addition to being a sensitive creature,
one of those precocious little philosophers thinly spread in the
female world, and made what they are often by delicate health, which
reduces them to a habit of thinking much before their time. Not that
she wanted the vivacity of her age, but that it was tempered by periods
of serious musing, when all kinds of what the Scotch call “auld
farrent” (far yont) thoughts come to be where they should not be, the
consequence being a weird-like kind of wisdom, very like that of the
aged; so the effect on a creature so constituted was just equal to
the cause. Annie ran out of the room with her face concealed in her
hands, and got into a small bed-room darkened by the window-blind, and
there, in an obscurity and solitude suited to her mind and feelings,
she resigned herself to the grief of the young heart. It was now
clear to her that her dear Mary was to be taken from her; had not the
doctor said as much? And then she had never seen death, of which she
had read and heard and thought so much, that she looked upon it as a
thing altogether mysterious and terrible. But had she not overheard
her father say that he had insured poor dear Mary’s life with the
Pelican? and had she not heard of the pelican--yea, the pelican of the
wilderness--as a creature of a most mythical kind, though she knew
not aught of its nature, whether bird or beast, or man or woman, or
angel. But whatever it might be, certain it was that her father would
never have got this wonderful creature to insure Mary’s life if it
was not possessed of the power to bring about so great a result; so
she cogitated, and mused, and philosophised in her small way, till
she came to the conclusion that the pelican not only had the destiny
of Mary in its hands, but was under an obligation to save her from
that death which was so terrible to her. Nor had she done yet with
the all-important subject; for all at once it came into her head as
a faint memory, that one day, when her father was taking her along
with her mother through the city, he pointed to a gilded sign, with a
large bird represented thereon tearing its breast with its long beak
and letting out the blood to its young, who were holding their mouths
open to drink it in. “There,” said he, “is the Pelican;” words she
remembered even to that hour, for they were imprinted upon her mind by
the formidable appearance of the wonderful-looking creature feeding its
young with the very blood of its bosom. But withal she had sense enough
to know--being, as we have said, a small philosopher--that a mere
bird, however endowed with the power of sustaining the lives of its
offspring, could not save that of her sister, and therefore it behoved
to be only the symbol of some power within the office over the door of
which the said sign was suspended. Nor in all this was Annie Maconie
more extravagant than are nineteen-twentieths of the thousand millions
in the world who still cling to occult causes.

And with those there came other equally strange thoughts; but beyond
all she could not for the very life of her comprehend that most
inexcusable apathy of her father, who, though he had heard with his own
ears, from good authority, that her beloved Mary was lying in the next
bed-room dying, never seemed to think of hurrying away to town--even
to that very pelican who had so generously undertaken to insure Mary’s
life. It was an apathy unbecoming a father; and the blood of her little
heart warmed with indignation at the very time that the said heart was
down in sorrow as far as its loose strings would enable it to go. But
was there no remedy? To be sure there was, and Annie knew, moreover,
what it was; but then it was to be got only by a sacrifice, and that
sacrifice she also knew, though it must of necessity be kept in the
meantime as secret as the wonderful doings in the death-chamber of the
palace of a certain Bluebeard.

Great thoughts these for so little a woman as Annie Maconie; and no
doubt the greatness and the weight of them were the cause why, for all
that day--every hour of which her father was allowing to pass--she was
more melancholy and thoughtful than she had ever been since Mary began
to be ill. But, somehow, there was a peculiar change which even her
mother could observe in her; for while she had been in the habit of
weeping for her sister, yea, and sobbing very piteously, she was all
this day apparently in a reverie. Nor even up to the time of her going
to bed was she less thoughtful and abstracted, even as if she had been
engaged in solving some problem great to her, however small it might
seem to grown-up infants. As for sleeping under the weight of so much
responsibility, it might seem to be out of the question, and so verily
it was; for her little body, acted on by the big thoughts, was moved
from one side to another all night, so that she never slept a wink
still thinking and thinking, in her unutterable grief, of poor Mary,
her father’s criminal passiveness, and that most occult remedy which so
completely engrossed her mind.

But certainly it was the light of morning for which sister Annie
sighed; and when it came glinting in at the small window, she was up
and beginning to dress, all the while listening lest the servant or
any other one in the house should know she was up at that hour. Having
completed her toilet, she slipped downstairs, and having got to the
lobby, she was provident enough to lay hold of an umbrella, for she
suspected the elements as being in league against her. Thus equipped,
she crept out by the back-door, and having got thus free, she hurried
along, never looking behind her till she came to the main road to
Edinburgh, when she mounted the umbrella--one used by her father, and
so large that it was more like a main-sheet than a covering suitable
to so small a personage; so it behoved, that if she met any other
“travellers on purpose bent,” the moving body must have appeared to
be some small tent on its way to a fair, carried by the proprietor
thereof, of whom no more could be seen but the two short toddling legs,
and the hem of the black riding-hood. But what cared Annie? She toiled
along; the miles were long in comparison of the short legs, but then
there was a large purpose in that little body, in the view of which
miles were of small account, however long a time it might take those
steps to go over them. Nor was it any drawback to all this energy,
concentrated in so small a bulk, that she had had no breakfast. Was
the dying sister Mary able to take any breakfast? and why should Annie
eat when Mary, who did all she did--and she always did everything that
sister Mary did--could not? The argument was enough for our little
logician.

By the time she reached, by those short steps of hers, the great city,
it was half-past eleven, and she had before her still a great deal to
accomplish. She made out, after considerable wanderings, the street
signalised above all streets by that wonderful bird; but after she got
into it, the greater difficulty remained of finding the figure itself,
whereto there was this untoward obstacle, that it was still drizzling
in the thick Scotch way of concrete drops of mist, and the umbrella
which she held over her head was so large that no turning it aside
would enable her to see under the rim at such an angle as would permit
her scanning so elevated a position, and so there was nothing for it
but to draw it down. But even this was a task--heavy as the main-sheet
was with rain, and rattling in a considerable wind--almost beyond her
strength; and if it hadn’t been that a kindly personage who saw the
little maid’s difficulty gave her assistance, she might not have been
able to accomplish it. And now, with the heavy article in her hand, she
peered about for another half-hour, till at length her gladdened eye
fell upon the mystic symbol.

And no sooner had she made sure of the object, than she found her way
into the office, asking the porter as well as a clerk where the pelican
was to be found--questions that produced a smile; but smile here or
smile there, Annie was not to be beat, nor did she stop in her progress
until at last she was shown into a room where she saw perched on a high
stool with three (of course) long legs, a strange-looking personage
with a curled wig and a pair of green spectacles, who no doubt must be
the pelican himself. As she appeared in the room, with the umbrella,
not much shorter or less in circumference than herself, the gentleman
looked curiously at her, wondering no doubt what the errand of so
strange a little customer could be.

“Well, my little lady,” said he, “what may be your pleasure?”

“I want the pelican,” said Annie.

The gentleman was still more astonished, even to the extent that he
laid down his pen and looked at her again.

“The pelican, dear?”

“Ay; just the pelican,” answered she, deliberately, and even a little
indignantly. “Are you the pelican?”

“Why, yes, dear; all that is for it below the figure,” said he,
smiling, and wondering what the next question would be.

“I am so glad I have found you,” said she; “because sister Mary is
dying.”

“And who is sister Mary?”

“My sister, Mary Maconie, at Juniper Green.”

Whereupon the gentleman began to remember that the name of William
Maconie was in his books as holder of a policy.

“And what more?”

“My father says the pelican insured Mary’s life, and I want you to come
direct and do it, because I couldn’t live if Mary were to die. And
there’s no time to be lost.”

“Oh! I see, dear; and who sent you?”

“Nobody,” answered Annie. “My father wouldn’t come to you, and I have
come from Juniper Green myself, without telling my father or mother.”

“Oh yes, dear; I understand you.”

“But you must do it quick,” continued she, “because the doctor
says she’s in great danger; so you must come with me, and save her
immediately.”

“I am sorry, my dear little lady,” rejoined he, “that I cannot go with
you; but I will set about it immediately, and I have no doubt, being
able to go faster than you, that I will get there before you, so that
all will be right before you arrive.”

“See that you do it, then,” said she, “because I can’t live if Mary
dies. Are you quite sure you will do it?”

“Perfectly sure, my little dear,” added he; “go away home, and all will
be right. The pelican will do his duty.”

And Annie being thus satisfied, went away, dragging the main-sheet
after her, and having upon her face a look of contentment, if not
absolute happiness, in place of the sorrow which had occupied it during
all the time of her toilsome journey. The same road is to be retraced;
and if she had an object before which nerved her little limbs, she had
now the delightful consciousness of that object having been effected--a
feeling of inspiration which enabled her, hungry as she was, to
overcome all the toil of the return. Another two hours, with that heavy
umbrella overhead as well as body, brought her at length home, where
she found that people had been sent out in various directions to find
the missing Annie. The mother was in tears, and the father in great
anxiety; and no sooner had she entered and laid down her burden, than
she was clasped to the bosom, first of one parent, and then of the
other.

“But where is the pelican?” said the anxious little maid.

“The pelican! my darling,” cried the mother; “what do you mean?”

“Oh! I have been to him at his own office at Edinburgh, to get him to
come and save Mary’s life, and he said he would be here before me.”

“And what in the world put it in your head to go there?” again asked
the mother.

“Because I heard my father say yesterday that the pelican had insured
dear sister Mary’s life, and I went to tell him to come and do it
immediately; because, if Mary were to die, I couldn’t live, you
know--that’s the reason, dear mother.”

“Yes, yes,” said the father, scarcely able to repress a smile which
rose in spite of his grief. “I see it all; you did a very right thing,
my love. The pelican has been here, and Mary is better.”

“Oh! I am so glad,” rejoined Annie, “for I wasn’t sure whether he had
come or not; because, though I looked for him on the road, I couldn’t
see him.”

At the same moment the doctor came in, with a blithe face.

“Mary is safe now,” said he. “There has been a crisis, after all. The
sweat has broken out upon her dry skin, and she will be well in a very
short time.”

“And there’s no thanks to you,” said Annie, “because it was I who went
for the pelican.”

Whereupon the doctor looked to the father, who, taking him aside,
narrated to him the story, at which the doctor was so pleased that he
laughed right out.

“You’re the noblest little heroine I ever heard of,” said he.

“But have you had anything to eat, dear, in this long journey?” said
the mother.

“No, I didn’t want,” was the answer; “all I wanted was to save Mary’s
life, and I am glad I have done it.”

And glad would we be if, by the laws of historical truth, our stranger
story could have ended here; but, alas! we are obliged to pain the
good reader’s heart by saying that the demon who had left the troubled
little breast of Mary Maconie took possession of Annie’s. The very next
day she lay extended on the bed, panting under the fell embrace of the
relentless foe. As Mary got better, Annie grew worse; and her case was
so far unlike Mary’s, that there was more a tendency to a fevered state
of the brain. The little sufferer watched with curious eyes the anxious
faces of her parents, and seemed conscious that she was in a dangerous
condition. Nor did it fail to occur to her as a great mystery as well
as wonder, why they did not send for the wonderful being who had so
promptly saved the life of her sister. The thought haunted her, yet
she was afraid to mention it to her mother, because it implied a sense
of danger--a fear which one evening she overcame. Fixing her eyes, now
every moment waxing less clear, on the face of her mother--

“Oh! mother, dear,” she whispered, “why do you not send for the
pelican?”

In other circumstances the mother would have smiled; but, alas, no
smile could be seen on that pale face. Whether the pelican was sent
for we know not, but certain it is, that he had no power to save poor
Annie, and she died within the week. But she did not die in vain, for
the large sum insured upon her life eventually came to Mary, whom she
loved so dearly.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of Davie Dempster’s Ghaist.


There was once an old saying very common in the mouths of the Edinburgh
people--“As dead as Davie Dempster.” It has long since passed away;
but whether it was preferable to the one to which it has given place,
viz.,--“As dead as a door-nail,” we must leave to those wise people who
can measure degrees of nonvitality in objects which are without life.
Be all which as it may, the imputed deadness of David Dempster may
appear to have some interest to us when we know the story from which
the old popular saying took its rise; and the more, that the story
cannot be said to want a moral vitality, if it has not even a spice of
humour in it. Certain, to begin with, David Dempster was at least once
alive, for we can vouch for his having been a very respectable denizen
of the old city. We can even impart the nature of his calling, that of
a trafficker in the stuff of man’s wearing apparel, which he sold to
those who were willing to buy, and even to some who were unwilling to
buy; for David’s tongue, if not so long as his ell-wand, was a deuced
deal more supple. Nor does our information end here, for we can, we
are happy to say, tell the name of his wife, which was Dorothy; nay,
we know even the interesting particular, that when David had more
Edinburgh ale in his stomach than humility in his head, he got so far
into the heroics as to call her Dorothea; but as for the maiden name
of this woman, who was the wife of a man so famous as to have been the
source and origin of a proverb, we regret to say that it has gone into
the limbo of things that are lost. To make amends, we can, however,
add that Mrs Dempster was, at the time of our story, as plump and well
coloured as Florabel; but as for David, who was ten years older than
his wife, he was just as plain as any man needs be without pretension
to being disagreeable.

We have said that David Dempster and his wife were respectable, and
we do not intend to offer a jot more evidence on the point, than the
fact that they went to “the kirk” on Sundays, and that, too, with
faces of the normal Calvinistic elongation, and in good clothes;
Dorothy being covered, head and all, with her red silk plaid, and
David immersed in the long square coat of the times, with cuffs as
big as four-pound tea-bags, buttons as broad as crown-pieces, and
pockets able to have held Dr Webster’s--their minister’s--pulpit
Bible in the one, and as many bottles of wine as the worthy gentleman
could carry away at a sitting, in the other; an allusion this last by
no means ill-natured, as we may show by making the admission that,
if David and Dorothy had had heads big enough to carry away all that
their excellent preacher told them, they required no more for unction
and function for a whole week. But, however fair things looked in the
sanctuary, it was otherwise at home in Lady Stair’s Close, where they
resided, for it so happened that our worthy clothes-merchant had got
into debt; nay, there were hornings and captions out against him, and
he stood a chance any day in all the year round of being shut up in
“The Heart of Mid-Lothian,” not nearly so soft a one as Dorothy’s. Not
that all David’s creditors were equally hard upon him, for the laird
of Rubbledykes--a small property on the left-hand side of the road to
Cramond--Mr Thomas Snoddy, who had lent him two hundred pounds Scots,
never asked him for a farthing; the reason of which requires a little
explanation.

In real secret truth the laird had been a lover of Dorothy’s before she
was married to David, and there is no doubt that if he had declared
himself, with Rubbledykes to back him, he would have carried off the
adorable Dorothy in triumph; but then it was the laird’s misfortune
to be what the Scotch call “a blate lover;” which is just to say, a
belated one; and Dorothy was married to the spruce and ardent David
before she knew that a real laird of an estate was dying in secret
for her. Nor could she have had any doubt of the fact, for Mr Snoddy
summoned up courage to tell her so himself--a circumstance which cost
him something, insomuch as no sooner did David know the fact than he
asked him for the loan of the said two hundred pounds Scots money. Of
course, David being, as we have said, a man with a supple tongue, and
brains at the end of it, knew what he was about, and so sure enough he
succeeded; for Rubbledykes, who would not have lent two hundred pound
Scots to the treasurer of the Virgin Mary on a note-of-hand, payable in
Heaven, was even delighted to advance that sum to the husband of his
once loved, and for ever lost, Dorothy. And in this act the laird was
wonderfully liberal; for in his secret heart he conditioned for no more
than the liberty of being allowed to visit the house in Lady Stair’s
Close on market days, and sit beside Dorothy, and look at her, and
wonder at her still red cheeks--albeit, more of the pickling cabbage
than the rose--and sigh at the loss of such a treasure. Neither in
suffering all this adoration did Mrs Dempster commit any very heinous
sin; nay, being, as a good Calvinist, a believer in the excellent
doctrine (if acted up to) of “total depravity,” she was necessarily in
the highway of salvation.

Neither did Mrs Dempster think it necessary to conceal any of these
doings from David. Nay, on one particular Wednesday, after the laird
had had his fill of this will-worship, she brought the subject up in
so particular a way to her husband, that we are thereby led to believe
that they understood each other, and could act in concert. The occasion
was the complaint of David that some of his other creditors were likely
to be down upon him.

“Ah, Dorothy, if they were a’ like Snoddy.”

Not a very respectful way of alluding to no less a personage than the
laird of Rubbledykes, let alone his kindness; but then David, being
a debtor, did not respect himself, and nothing was ever more true
than the saying, “That our own self-respect is the foundation of that
respect which we pay to others.”

“But they’re _no’_ a’ like the laird,” replied Dorothy; “and what’s
mair, David, my man, the laird winna be ane o’ your creditors lang
either.”

“What mean you, lass?” inquired David.

“I just mean neither mair nor less than that Thomas Snoddy o’
Rubbledykes, wha should hae been my gudeman, is deein’ as fast as he
can bicker; and that by and by I might have been my Leddy Rubbledykes
wi’ three hundred a year, and nae husband to trouble me.”

“That’s ill news,” continued David; “for if he dees, the debt will gae
to his brother, a man who would raze the skin frae the mother’s face
that bore him, if he could mak a leather purse out o’t. But what maks
ye think he is deein’, lass?”

“Deein’!” rejoined Dorothy, with an ill-timed, if not cruel laugh.
“That cough o’ his would kill baith you and me in a year, even if we
should only cough time about.”

“Ower true, I fear,” groaned David; “and then there’s a’ thae ither
debts upon me. Hark, Dorothy, ye’re a clever dame; could ye no’ get the
laird to discharge the debt?”

“Maybe I might, were I to kiss him, David,” was the answer, with
another smile.

“And what for no’?” asked this honest man, who raised his voice in the
Tron every Sunday.

“Because I am neither a Judith nor a Judas,” replied she.

“But ye’re a Christian,” was the ready rejoinder; “and what’s mair, a
Calvinist.”

“As if a body could be a Christian without being a Calvinist,” said
she. “But what do ye mean, David--are ye crazy? Why should I kiss
another man because I’m a Calvinist?”

“Nae sin, nae salvation,” said he.

Whereupon the worthy couple laughed at a tenet which, being liable to
a double construction, has always been dangerous to the common people
of Scotland. And what was worse, this laugh was only the prelude to a
further conversation so deep and mysterious, and withal conducted in
so low a train of whispers and re-whispers, that even our familiar,
endowed as he is with the power of going through stone walls, could
carry off no more than smiles and nods and winks, and more and more
of the same kind of laughs. But as the son of Sirach says, “There
is an exquisite subtlety, and the same is unjust;” and “Wrath will
surely search it.” Nor was there in this case much time required for
the retribution, for the very next day a man rushed into the house of
Mrs Dempster with the intelligence on his tongue that David Dempster
was drowned at Granton. The dreadful story was indeed corroborated
into a certainty by a bundle of clothes which the messenger of evil
tidings laid on the table, no other than the suit which David had
put on that morning, including the linen shirt which Dorothy’s own
fingers had adorned with the breast-ruffle, and identified with the
beloved initials, D. D., more precious to her than the symbols of
ecclesiastical honours. All were there as he had left them on the beach
before the plunge which was to be unto death--yea, something after
death, and more terrible, for had not David been a scoffer? If Mrs
Dempster had at first been able to collect her scattered senses, she
would have been satisfied even with the look of the clothes, for she
had heard her husband say, with a blithe look, that he was to go to
Granton to bathe, and she would, moreover, have had some minutes sooner
the melancholy satisfaction that one so dear to her had not committed
suicide.

But the sudden impression left no room for consolations of any kind.
Struggling nature could do no more than work itself out of one swoon
to fall into another, and how long it was before she could listen to
the inrushing neighbours with their news that he had been boated for,
and dived for, and hooked for, and searched for, no record remains to
tell. But that all these efforts had been made there was no doubt, and
as the hours passed bringing as yet no assuagement of a grief which
is only amenable to time, it came to be known that the coast had been
examined all about the fatal spot with no return but the inevitable
_non inventus_; nor did it require many days to satisfy the unfortunate
widow that the catastrophe was of that complete kind where the
remaining victim is not only deprived of a husband, but denied the poor
consolation of seeing his dead body.

Yet how true it is that the kingdom of Death is in the land of
forgetfulness, not only to the ghostly denizens who there dwell, but
also to those who are left in this region of quick memories. Wherein
surely there is a kindness in the cruelty; for assuredly there is no
one who could suffer for a protracted period the intensity of the first
onset of a grief of a privation which is to be for ever in this world
and be able to live. And this kindliness of the fates was experienced
by Mrs Dorothy Dempster, who, after a decent period, and amidst the
consolations of friends, felt herself in a condition to be able to wait
upon the creditors of her husband and get them to be contented with
the small stock left by him, and give her acquittances of their debts;
nay, so heartrending were her appeals, and so miserable she appeared in
her weeds, that these good men even voted her a small sum out of the
wreck as a beautiful tribute to pity and humanity. All which went for
its value, so creditable as it is to human nature, and we need hardly
add that the frequent reading of the encomium in the _Mercury_ on the
merits of the deceased--which, of course, proceeded on the inevitable
rule that a man is only good provided he is dead--heaped up the
consolation even to a species of melancholy pleasure.

And, surely, if on this occasion there was any one _ipsis charitibus
humanior_, it was Mr Thomas Snoddy, the good laird of Rubbledykes.
Nor were his attentions merely empty-handed visits to the house of
the widow, for he brought her money, often, after all, the chief of
consolations. Of the manner in which that might be accepted he probably
suspected there was nothing to be feared; but there was another gift
he had in store, in regard to the acceptability of which he was
not quite so sure--and that was his old love kindled up into a new
flame--probably enough he had never heard or read the lines to the
effect that--

  “Cupid can his wings apply,
  To other uses than to fly;
  Serving as a handkerchief
  To dry the tears of widows’ grief.”

But, whether so or not, he resolved upon trying what he himself could
do in that remedial way; and, accordingly, he began with a small dose,
the success of which urged him to a repetition; and on he went from
small quantities to greater, till he was overjoyed to find that the
patient could bear any amount he was able to administer. Nor could it
be said that the aforesaid cough made any abatement from the success
of these efforts, if we might not rather surmise that it entered as an
element in their recommendation--at least it indicated no hollowness in
Rubbledykes.

We all know that “the question” once meant _torture_. At the period of
our story, and we hope not less in our day, it meant _rapture_; and it
is not unlikely that Mrs Dempster on that market-day, when the laird
sat by the side of the parlour fire in Lady Stair’s Close, enjoyed
something of that kind when the words fell on her ear.

“Now, my dear Dorothy--to come to the point in the lang-run--will ye
hae me for your second husband, wha should hae been your first?”

“I hae no objection,” replied Dorothy, as she held away her head and
covered her eyes with her handkerchief; “_but_----”

And Mrs Dempster stopped short, with an effect almost as great on the
astonished suitor as that of the memorable answer given by a certain
Mrs Jean of Clavershalee to another laird, whose property lay not far
distant from Rubbledykes.

“But!” ejaculated the laird, with an effort that brought an attack of
his cough upon him. “You maun ‘but’ me nae ‘buts,’ Dorothy, unless ye
want to kill me. I aye thought I had a better claim to you than David.
Heaven rest his body in the deep waters o’ the Forth, and his soul in
heaven!”

“Ay,” continued she, as she applied the handkerchief again, as if this
time to receive some tears which ought to have come and didn’t; “but
that just puts me in mind o’ what I was going to say. You have seen
how David was ta’en awa. What if onything should happen to you? What
would become o’ me? Rubbledykes would gae to your brother.”

“The de’il a stane o’t, Dorothy,” cried the laird. “It will be a’
yours. I will mak it ower to you; tofts and crofts, outhouses and
inhouses, muirs and mosses, pairts and pertinents. Will that please
you?”

“Ay, will’t,” answered Dorothy from behind the handkerchief.

Whereupon the laird took her in his arms with a view to kiss her; but
there is many a slip not only between the cup and the lip, but between
one lip and another; for no sooner had Thomas so prepared himself for,
perhaps, the greatest occasion of his life--even that of kissing a
woman, and that woman the very idol of his heart--than that dreadful
cough came again upon him, and Dorothy could not help thinking that it
was now more hollow, or, as the Scotch call it, _toom_, than ever she
had heard it.

“I will awa to Mr Ainslie and get the contract written out at length,”
he said, to cover his disgrace.

Nor was it sooner said than done. Away he went, leaving Dorothy
virtually a bride, and the lady _in esse_ of an estate, albeit a small
one, yet great to her. At all which she laughed a most enigmatical
laugh, as if some secret thoughts had risen in her mind with the effect
of a ridiculous incongruity; but what these thoughts were no one ever
knew. Nor shall we try to imagine them, considering ourselves to be
better employed in setting forth that shortly afterwards Mrs Dorothy
Dempster was joined in the silken bands of holy wedlock with Thomas
Snoddy, Esquire, of Rubbledykes, and that by the hands of Dr Webster
of the Tron, who accompanied the happy couple in the evening to the
gray-slated mansion-house, where he made another celebration of the
event by draining a couple of bottles of good old claret. Strange
enough all these things; but the real wonders of our story would seem
only to begin with the settlement of Mr David Dempster’s widow in
the mansion-house of the veritable laird; even though, consistently
with the manners of the time, there was a duck-pond at the door, a
peat-stack on the gable, and a midden gracing the byre not five yards
from the parlour window; spite of all which Mrs Dorothy was a lady,
while David lay with glazed eyes in the Forth among the fishes scarcely
a mile distant from his enchanted widow.

We think it a strange thing that mortals should laugh and weep by
turns, yet we think sunshine and showers a very natural alternation;
and surely it is far more wonderful that we often weep when we
should laugh, and laugh when we should weep--of which hypocrisy,
notwithstanding, there is a hundred times more in the world than man or
woman wots of. And we are sorry to be obliged to doubt the extent of
the new-made lady’s grief when she saw the laird’s cough increasing as
his love waxed stronger and his lungs grew less. Nay, we are not sure
that when she saw that he was dying, and hailed the signs with grief
in her eyes and joy in her heart, she was under the impression that
she was acting up to the amiable tenet of her religious creed--total
depravity. Be all which as it may, it is certain that though Dorothy’s
tears had been of that real kind of which Tully says they are--“the
easiest dried of all things,” they would not have retarded the progress
of the laird’s disease. It was not yet three months, and he was
confined to bed, with Dorothy hanging over him, watching him with all
the care of a seeker for favourable symptoms. But one evening there was
a symptom which she was unprepared for--nay, she was this time serious
in her alarm.

“I have done that which is evil in the sight o’ God.”

The words came as from a far-away place, they were so hollow.

“What is it, Tammas?” asked she.

“I have seen David Dempster’s ghaist,” said he. “It looked in at that
window, and disappeared in an instant; but no’ before I kent what the
een said. Yea, Dorothy, they said as plainly as een can speak--‘Tammas
Snoddy, ye made love to Dorothy Dempster when I was alive in the body,
and her lawful husband.’”

And the laird shook all over so violently that Dorothy could see the
clothes move.

“Just your conscience, Tammas,” said she. “Ye maun fley thae visions
awa in the auld way. It is the deevil tempting ye. We maun flap the
leaves o’ the Bible at him, and ye’ll see nae mair o’ him in this warld
at any rate.”

And Dorothy, taking up the holy book and opening it at the middle,
flapt it with such energy that more dust came out of it than should
have been found in a Calvinist’s Bible.

“Ye’ll see nor hilt, nor hair, nor hoop, nor horn mair o’ him,” she
added, with, we almost fear to surmise, a laugh.

And Mrs Snoddy’s prophecy was of that kind--the safest of all--which
comes after knowledge.

“Then I will dee in peace,” said the relieved laird; “for I hae nae
ither sin on my conscience.”

“Nae sin, nae salvation,” added Dorothy.

“A maist comfortable doctrine,” sighed the laird.

And comfortable, surely, it must have been to him, for two days
afterwards the good laird slipt away out of this bad world as lightly
and easily as if he had felt the burden of his sins as imponderous as
the flying dove does the white feathers on its back. Nor did many more
days elapse before the mortal remains of the good man were deposited
in the churchyard of Cramond, leaving the double widow with her
contract of marriage and her tears for a second husband lying in the
earth so near the first, deep in the bosom of the Forth. But, sooner
or later, there comes comfort of some kind to these amiable creatures
in distress, especially if they are possessed of those cabalistic
things called marriage contracts. We do not say that that comfort comes
always from the grave in the shape of a veritable ghost, but sure it
is that if we could in any case fancy a spirit visiting the earth for
any rational purpose, it would be where a comely widow was ready to
receive it, and warm its cold hands, and wrap the winding-sheet well
round it, and treat it kindly. All which we may leave for suggestion
and meditation, but we demand conviction, and assent, as we proceed,
to set forth that the very next evening after the funeral of Laird
Tammas, the ghaist of David Dempster, despising all secret openings,
and even giving up the privilege of keyholes, went straight into the
house of Rubbledykes, and entered the room where Dorothy was sitting.
Extraordinary enough, no doubt; but not even so much so as the fact we
are about to relate--viz., that Mrs Dorothy was no more astonished at
its appearance before her than she had been when she heard the laird
say that he saw the face of that same spirit at the window; nor did she
on this occasion have recourse to the Bible as an exorcist, by flapping
the leaves of the same, to terrify it away, in the supposition that it
was the devil in disguise. It is very true that she held up her hands,
but then that was only a prelude to the arms being employed in clasping
the appearance to her breast; an embrace which was responded to with
a fervour little to be expected from one of these flimsy creatures.
Nay, things waxed even more enigmatical and ridiculous, for the two
actually kissed each other--a fact which ought to be treasured up as a
psychological curiosity of some use, insomuch as it may diminish the
fear we so irrationally feel at the expected visit of supernatural
beings. But worse and more ridiculous still--

“When had you anything to eat Davie? Ye’ll be hungry.”

“No’ unlikely, Dorothy lass,” answered the wraith; “for I didna like
the cauld fish, and there’s nae cooking apparatus in the Forth.”

“Ye would maybe tak a whang o’ the round o’ beef we had at the laird’s
funeral yesterday?”

“The very thing, woman,” answered the ghaist; “and if ye have a bottle
o’ brandy to wash it down, it will tak awa the cauld o’ the saut water.”

“Twa, an ye like, lad,” responded the apparently delighted widow,
as she ran away to set before the visitor the edible and drinkable
comforts which had been declared so acceptable.

And you may believe or reject the whisperings of our familiar just as
you please, but we have all the justification of absolute veritability
for the fact that this extraordinary guest, or ghaist, if you so
please, sat down before the said round of beef, brandishing a knife in
the one hand and a fork in the other, and looking so heartily purposed
to attack the same, that you might have augured it had not had a chop
since that forenoon when in the embodied state it went down to cool and
wash itself in the sea at Granton. Nor need we be more squeamish than
we have been in declaring at once that it did so much justice to the
meat and the drink, that you might have thought it had been fed for
months on Hecate’s short-commons in Hades. And then a text so ample and
substantial could surely bear a running commentary.

“It would have been o’ nae use, Dorothy. If ye hadna been as gude a
prophetess as Deborah, I might hae been obliged to conceal myself in
England lang enough.”

“It didna need a Deborah, David,” answered she, “to see that nae human
body could stand that cough mair than a month or two. Ye hadna lang to
wait, man; and though ye had had langer, _there_, see, was your comfort
at the end.”

And Dorothy put into the ghaist’s hand the marriage contract--a worldly
thing which seemed to vie with the junket of beef in its influence over
mere spirit, insomuch as he perused the same by snatches between the
bites and draughts, both processes going on almost simultaneously--the
eye fixed on the paper, while a protruding lump in the cheek was in the
act of being diminished.

“A’ right, lass,” was at length the exclamation.

“Ay; but ye maun be gude to me now, Davie,” said she; “for ye see it’s
a’ in my ain power: Rubbledykes is mine, and I hae wrought for’t.”

“And so hae I,” ejaculated the other. “You forget my banishment and
difficulty of living, for I took scarcely any siller wi’ me; and,
mairower, how am I to face the people o’ E’nbro’?”

“And the gude Calvinists o’ the Tron?” added the wife.

Notwithstanding which difficulties the visitor contrived to make a
hearty meal; nor was he contented with the brandy taken during the
time of eating, for with all their spiritual tenderness, there was a
crave for toddy--a request which was complied with by the introduction
of warm water and sugar. How often the tumbler was tumbled up to pour
the last drops, which defied the silver toddy-ladle in the glass, we
are not authorised to say; but we have authority for the assertion that
any man of flesh and blood could not have perpetrated that number of
tumblings without changing almost his nature--that is, being so far
spiritualised as to be entitled to say, in the words of the old song by
Pinkerton--

  “Death, begone--here’s none but souls.”

And therefore the spiritual nature of David Dempster, in his new part,
was not so wonderful after all. But the doubt recurs again, as we
proceed to say that Mrs Dorothy Snoddy helped her visitor to bed, nay,
she actually went very blithely into that same bed herself, where they
both slumbered very comfortably till next morning.

We may add that these same doubts were liable to be dispelled by
another fact we have to relate. The visitor, it will be remembered, put
the question to Dorothy, “How was he to meet the people of Edinburgh?”
a question which implied a mortal presence, besides no prescience. We
say this last deliberately, because in place of the fear of meeting
being on his side, it was altogether on theirs. It happened that, two
days after the occurrences we have described, an object bearing the
figure of David Dempster was seen on the Cramond road by a carrier
called Samuel Finlayson, who had had transactions with the dealer in
corduroys--an occasion which had the inevitable effect of raising
Samuel’s bonnet along with the standing hair, besides that of inducing
him to whip his horse to force the animal on, just in the way of
another animal of cognate species under similar circumstances. He, of
course, took the story of a ghaist, all cut and dry, into the city.
On the same day, Andrew Gilfillan saw the same figure on Corstorphine
Hill, and flew past the seat marked “Rest and be thankful,” without
even looking at it. He, too, carried the same tidings. George
Plenderleith encountered the identical object in the village of
Corstorphine busy eating Corstorphine cream--that is, cream mixed with
oatmeal, (a finer kind of crowdy,) and he hastened to Edinburgh with a
speed only to be accounted for by terror. He, too, told his tale; the
effect of all which, added to and inflamed by other reports, was, that
Edinburgh was stirred from the Castle gate to the Palace yett, by the
conviction that David Dempster had returned from the kingdom of death
to this world of life for some purpose which would most certainly come
out; but, in due time, whether with or without a purpose, here it was
proved that ghosts were no dream, and David Hume no philosopher. Many
people sought the Cramond road, and hung about Rubbledykes to get their
scepticism or dogmatism confirmed. The end of these things is pretty
uniform--_res locuta est_; the people began to see where the truth lay,
and the laughter came in due course, to revive the hearts that had been
chilled by fear.

We would be sorry if we were necessitated to end our story at the
very nick of the triumph of vice. Happily, we have something more to
say--nothing less, indeed, than that James Snoddy, the brother of
the laird, raised a process--that is, instituted a suit before the
Court of Session, to have his brother’s contract of marriage with
Mrs Dorothy Dempster annulled and set aside, upon the grounds of
deception, circumvention, and _prava causa_; nor had he any trouble in
getting a decree, for David and his wife made no appearance, neither
could they make any appearance in Edinburgh. Their only resource was
to take advantage of that kind of bail called “leg;” an easy affair,
insomuch as there is no bond required for appearance anywhere. It was
at the time supposed that they had gone to America, that asylum of
unfortunates, where one-half of the people cut the throats of the other
in the name of liberty.




[Illustration]




The Story of the Gorthley Twins.


It was the custom at one time in Edinburgh for the proprietors of large
self-contained houses to give them the names of the properties they
had in the country--hence our Panmure House, Tweeddale Court, and so
forth--and among them there was Gorthley House, of which no vestige now
remains; nay, we are by no means sure where it was situated, beyond
the fact that it was somewhere in the Canongate, but gone as it is
according to the law of change, its name will always be associated
with the law-plea Bruce _versus_ Bruce, which contained the germ of
the little romance we are now to relate in our way. And to begin in
order, we take the state of matters at the time when the plea began.
John Bruce of Gorthley had died, and left a widow and three daughters,
two of whom were twins, and the third was the youngest. The names of
the twins were Sarah and Martha, who at this time were two fine girls
verging upon majority, and as like each other as two white peas; and
surely if we might expect, in this world of strife and contention,
that there should be found real love and friendship anywhere, it might
be in the case of two sisters who had lain so close together for nine
months, and who had drunk their milk at the same kindly fountain of a
doating mother’s breast. But so full is the moral atmosphere of our
fallen world of the spores of hatred, that you may as well try to keep
a cheese from the seeds of green mould as the human heart from the
germs of ill-will. And so it was that these two young ladies hated each
other very heartily, for a reason which we will by and by reveal, to
the astonishment of the reader; and this hatred was the counterpart of
a contention that had embittered the lives of the father and mother,
even up to the time of the former’s death.

All which will be better explained by following the course of events
after the death of Mr Bruce, beginning with a visit on the part of Lady
Gorthley--as she was called according to the custom of the time, when
titles were held in such regard that the common people even forged
them for the great--along with her favourite daughter, Martha, to the
office of Mr James Pollock, the agent for the family. That her ladyship
was bent upon some enterprise of considerable moment might have been
guessed from the look of her face, which had that mysterious air about
it belonging to secrecy, nor less from that of the daughter; and no
one could have doubted that, whatever they were bent upon, the other
twin, Sarah, was not to be let up to the secret. Perhaps the time of
the visit to the writer was opportune, insomuch as Sarah had gone, as
she had said, with her cousin, George Walkinshaw, advocate, to take a
stroll by the back of St Leonard’s as far as “the Cat Nick,” and come
home by the Hunter’s Bog; which couple, we may also say, had their
secret too, in addition to their love affair, if that secret was not
connected with the very same subject we have referred to as that which
divided the family. Be all that as it might, we are going right along
with the facts of the plea when we set forth that in a very short time
Lady Gorthley and Martha were seated each on a chair in the writing
office of the said agent, Mr Pollock, and the very first words that
came out of her ladyship’s mouth were these--

“Has Sarah or her cousin called upon you since the death of Gorthley?”
by which she meant, according to the custom of the time, her own
husband.

“They are even at this moment in the other room, madam,” said he, with
a lawyer’s smile on his face.

“Indeed,” said her ladyship, with an expression of both surprise and
anger. “Why, she told me an hour ago that she was going to take a walk
by the ‘Cat Nick.’”

“And so she has,” added the writer, still smiling, “for my door may not
be inappropriately so called in the circumstances?”

“Only, I presume,” said the lady, “I am not, I hope, to be included
among the cats. I will wait until you have learned what the impertinent
girl has got to say, and then you will have time to hear me and Martha.”

“I already know that,” said he; “but, as I believe our conversation is
about finished, I will despatch them in a few seconds, and then return
to hear your ladyship’s commands.”

“But you will say nothing of our being here.”

“The never a word, madam,” said he, adding to himself as he went away,
“I don’t want a battle of the cats in my office at least; they do best
when they put the cheese into the hands of the ----,” and he did not
add the word monkey, insomuch as it looked personal.

“There, you see, Martha, the gipsy is determined to stand by her
rights,” was the remark of her ladyship after Mr Pollock had left the
room.

“But we’ll beat her off, mother,” rejoined Martha, with a spirit which
Mr Pollock or any other lawyer might have admired; “and,” continued
Martha, with a smile, “we will say nothing about the _strawberry_.”

“Nothing, dear,” rejoined the mother; “that strawberry is worth all the
lands of Gorthley.”

Of which enigmatical strawberry they said no more; but that is no
reason why we should not say something of it when the proper time
comes, of which, by the rules of our art, we are the best judges.
Meanwhile Mr Pollock, having despatched the other feline, returned.

“And now, madam,” said he, as he took his seat, “I am ready to hear
you.”

“You know, Mr Pollock,” resumed her ladyship, “that the entail of
Gorthley provides that the property shall go to the eldest heir female
in the event of there being no heir male.”

“We all know that, madam,” said the writer; “and if we had any doubt of
it a certain paper in that green box there would very soon clear up our
vision. But the question is, which of the two young ladies, Sarah or
Martha, first saw the light of day?”

“No question at all,” rejoined the lady. “Martha was the first-born.”

“Yes, madam, I know, and knew before, that that is your opinion; but
you are perhaps not aware that Gorthley himself told me, some time
before he died, that Sarah was the first-born; and so we have here, so
far as the testimony goes, one witness against another.”

“And what knew he about it?” retorted she, sharply. “He was not present
at the birth to see; while I fancy you won’t deny I was.”

Whereupon Mr Pollock, getting into the mistake that her ladyship was
drolling, and being a droll himself, said, laughing, “Why, madam, no
man could deny the necessity of your being present any more than in the
case of Girzel Jamphrey, who said to the people who were pressing on to
see her burnt as a witch on the sands at Dundee, ‘You needna be in sic
a hurry; there will be nae sport till I come.’”

Whereat Lady Gorthley tightened the strings she had allowed to get
loose.

“It’s not a matter to joke about, sir,” she said. “Though I am not a
witch, I say, and will maintain, that I am a better witness to the fact
of which of the twins was born first than Gorthley could possibly be.”

“Still, madam,” continued the writer, “I fear it is only a comparison
between the value of two ciphers; the one may look bigger than the
other, but each is equal to nothing. It is true that we men don’t
know much of these things, yet--I beg pardon, the subject is a little
delicate--we know that when a lady bears twins she doesn’t take the
first and mark it before she bears the second; and then if she doesn’t
mark it in the very nick of time, it’s of no use, because the two
babies get mixed in the bath, as an Irishman would say, and their being
so like as one strawberry to another, no one can say that the one is
not the other, or the other not the one.”

At which mention of the word strawberry, Lady Gorthley looked to
Martha, and Martha looked to her, and they seemed puzzled.

“But however all that may be,” continued the lady, “what can you say to
the evidence of Peggy Macintosh, the nurse, who will swear that Martha
came first into the world?”

“I cannot answer that question,” said he, with the caution of his
profession, “until I see Mrs Macintosh and examine her. There is also
Jean Gilchrist, one of the servants, who was present, I have her to
examine also, and then we will see where the truth lies. Oh! but I
forgot there is Mrs Glennie, the midwife, the woman whose word will go
farthest, because she had a better _causa scientiæ_.”

“I know nothing about Latin,” rejoined her ladyship angrily; “but as
for Mrs Glennie, she’s dead years ago.”

“Ah, indeed,” said Mr Pollock, “if that is true we will have only the
nurse and the servant for witnesses, and if they oppose each other,
the one for Sarah and the other for Martha, and as it is true that
you always treated Martha as the eldest, and Gorthley always insisted
on Sarah as being the first-born, we will have an undecidable case, a
thing that never occurred in Scotland before, perhaps not in the world,
for you know Solomon would not allow any impossibility in deciding the
case of the baby with the two mothers. But, madam, allow me to say,
that as your husband, Mr Bruce, left directions that I, as agent for
the family, should get Sarah served heir, and as you insist upon that
being done for Martha, it will be necessary that you employ a man of
business of your own, so that we may fight the battle fair out.”

“Well,” said the lady with an expression of bitterness in her face
not much in harmony with her words, “since Gorthley has left the
continuance of the strife as a legacy to his widow and children, I
shall go to Mr Bayne as my agent, and authorise him to protect the
rights of Martha, and fight it to the bitter end--bitter, I mean, for
Sarah Bruce, who will never be Lady Gorthley.”

And with these words she left, accompanied by Martha, directing their
steps to the office of Mr Bayne, who, as her ladyship’s private agent,
knew very well of this most strange contention which had so long been
maintained in Gorthley House. Nor, probably, was he displeased at it,
any more than Mr Pollock had been. Gorthley estate was a large cheese,
the cats were fierce, and there was plenty for even two monkeys, so he
listened attentively to her ladyship’s statement that the nurse, Mrs
Macintosh, would swear in favour of Martha, but she said never a word
about Jean Gilchrist.

“The nurse’s evidence will go a great way, madam,” said he, “seeing the
midwife is dead; but it will be satisfactory if Mrs Macintosh could
condescend upon some mark which she noticed immediately at the time of
the birth, for the two young ladies are really so like each other now
I often confound them, nay, they confound me so that we cannot very
well imagine how they could be distinguished when brought together soon
after birth.”

“Look here, Mr Bayne,” said the lady in a whispering way, as if she
were to reveal something wonderously mysterious, “look here, sir,”--

And taking off Martha’s cloak and turning up the kerchief that covered
her neck and the top of her shoulders, she said, “Do you see that?”

The writer complied by a pretty narrow inspection of a very pretty neck
of (a strawberry being in question) the appropriate colour of cream.

“A very decided mark of a strawberry,” said he; “and, really if it were
a proof that Martha has the right to succeed to Gorthley, it might be
said to be the most beautiful beauty spot that a young lady could
bear. How comes that mark to be there?”

“Why,” replied the lady, “Gorthley threw a strawberry at me when I was
in the way, you know, and thus made a mother’s mark, as they call it,
just as if he had intended to point out the true heir; and you know the
Scotch say that these marks are lucky.”

“But you forget, madam,” replied the man of the law, who did not
believe in special providences, except in special cases, when he
received payment of his accounts. “You forget that Gorthley was against
Martha, so that if he had had any intention in the matter, it must
rather have been to make a blot; besides, our judges might probably say
that the mark, for aught they knew, was intended to show that Martha
was not the heir; in short, unless we can identify the mark as having
been seen on the first-born, I fear, though it is very pretty, it will
do us no good.”

“But Mrs Macintosh can do that,” replied the lady.

“Ah! you have hit the mark now,” said he; “and I will see Mrs
Macintosh, and any other witnesses who can speak to the point.”

And so having, after some more conversation, despatched his two
clients, Mr Bayne proceeded that same evening to the residence of Mrs
Peggy Macintosh, whom he found very busy spinning, little prepared for
a visit from a man of the law, with a powdered wig on his head, and a
gold-headed cane in his hand,--an apparition which even the wheel could
not resist, for it stopt its birr instantly, as if through fear.

“Mrs Macintosh,” said Mr Bayne, as he took a seat alongside of Peggy,
“do you remember having been present at the birth of Mrs Bruce’s twins?”

“Indeed, sir, and I was,” answered she, “and a gey birth it was.”

“And could you tell which was which when the infants were born?”

“Weel, sir,” answered Peggy, “if you will tell me which is the which
you mean, I’ll try to satisfy ye if I can?”

“Why, I mean, which was Sarah and which Martha?” continued the writer.

“How could I tell ye that, sir,” answered Peggy, with a look of true
Scotch complacency, “when the bairns werena christened?”

The writer, acute as he was, was a little put out, but he rallied.

“Why, Peggy, you surely understand what I mean; did you not know the
child which was afterwards called Sarah from that which was afterwards
called Martha?”

“I would have liked to have seen you try that, sir,” was again the
answer. “How the deil--I beg pardon, sir--was I to ken what they were
to be ca’ed when their names werena even fixed by the father and mother
themselves?”

“I see you don’t understand me, Mrs Macintosh,” continued Mr Bayne, who
had got a Scotch witness on his line.

“I think it’s you that doesna understand me,” retorted Peggy.

“Look here,” continued Mr Bayne, smiling, “you know Sarah Bruce and
Martha Bruce?”

“Ay, when they’re thegither,” replied Peggy, “and they tell me their
names; but just put them an ell or twa asinder, and I’ll defy the
horned Clootie himsel to say which is which.”

“Worse and worse,” muttered the writer. “Look you, Peggy, was there no
mark on either of the children by which you could know it?”

“Ay was there,” replied the woman; “but we’re just where we were; for,
whether the strawberry was upon the ane or the ither, or the ither or
the ane, is just what I want you, since you’re a man o’ the law, and
weel skilled in kittle points, to tell me.”

“Worse even yet,” muttered the discomfited precognoscer.

“But I can mak the thing as plain as the Shorter Catechism,” continued
she, with a sharp look, which revived the sinking hopes of Mr Bayne.
“Mrs Glennie that night was in a terrible fluster, for she began
to see that there was likely to be mair bairns than she bargained
for--twins, if no may be trins; so Jean Gilchrist was brought up to
help in addition to mysel. Then the first are cam’ in a hurry, the
mair by token it kenned naething o’ the warld it was coming into, and
Mrs Glennie pushed it into my hands. ‘There will be anither, Peggy,’
said she, ‘and look gleg;’ but there was only flannel for ane; and I
gave the wean to Jean to wash, while I ran to get happins. I was back
in less than five minutes; and, just as I was entering, ‘Here’s the
other ane,’ said Mrs Glennie. I took it frae her, and gave it to Jean,
and took frae her the ane she had washed, in order to wrap it, and so
I did; but before I was dune I saw Jean wasna doing the thing as she
ought; so I gave her the ane I had, and I took hers to wash it better;
but before it was dune Mrs Glennie cried to me to come to help her with
the lady; so I put my bairn into Jean’s arms alang side o’ the ither;
and when I had finished with the lady I took the last ane frae Jean
again; but before I had completed the dressing o’t Jean cried out,
‘This bairn is deein’.’ ‘You’re a fule,’ said I, ‘give it to me;’ and
so she did. Then I ran and got some cordial, and poured it down the
throat o’ the creature. By this time Jean had hers upon the settee, and
I laid mine alang side o’t; but in a little time the mither was crying
to see the weans; and Mrs Glennie took the ane, and I took the ither,
and showed her them. Then Mrs Glennie took mine away to lay it down on
the settee again; and I took hers and laid it down by the side o’ its
sister. That’s how it was, sir, and sure I am naething can be plainer.”

“But what about the strawberry?” said Mr Bayne.

“Nane o’ us saw that till the bairns began to be mixed,” was the
answer; “and then they were changed, and changed again sae aften that
my head ran round, and I lost a’ count.”

“But haven’t you said to Lady Gorthley that the mark was on the
first-born?” asked Mr Bayne.

“Indeed, and I did that same,” was the ready answer. “My lady gave me
five gowden guineas to tell her; and, as I couldna be sure, I thought I
couldna do better than to make safe and sure wark o’t; so I took five
shillings out o’ the five guineas and gave it to the Carlin o’ the
Cowgate, a wise woman, frae the very native place o’ thae far-seeing
creatures, Auldearn, Auld Eppie, as they ca’ her, (they were all
Eppies,) and she settled the thing in the trice o’ a cantrup; so you
see the fact is sure that the strawberry belanged to the first-born.”

“And did you tell Lady Gorthley you went to Eppie?” inquired the
discomfited writer.

“Gude faith na, she might hae asked back the five guineas,” answered
Peggy; “and besides, if she got the truth, it was a’ ane to her, ye
ken, where it cam’ frae; and you’ll be discreet and say naething.”

“Did you ask from the old woman the name of her who bore the mark?”
rejoined Mr Bayne.

“Ay, but she said she didna like to spier that at the auld ane--Nick,
ye ken--because he might have got angry and told her a lee, and that
might hae brought me into a scrape wi’ her ladyship, who knew hersel
which o’ her daughters bore the mark.”

“Very prudent,” muttered again the writer, as he rose, “this is a most
satisfactory witness.”

And carrying this satisfaction along with him, he proceeded to the
small garret occupied by Jean Gilchrist, the direction to which he had
got from Mrs Macintosh. Believing as he did the statement made to him
by the latter, he had very little hope of getting anything satisfactory
out of his present witness, and wishing to keep her more to the point
than he had been able to effect in the prior case, he assumed her
presence at the birth, and came straight out with the question,
whether she knew if there had been noticed on one of the children the
mark of the strawberry.

“The strawberry?” said she, “ay, wi’ a’ wondered at that, but then it’s
no uncommon things in weans to be marked in that way, so we sune got
ower’t.”

“And was this mark on the child which was first born?” inquired he.

“I’ll tell you that, sir,” replied she, “if ye’ll tell me first which
o’ the twa cam’ first into the world.”

Whereby Mr Bayne found himself where he was, in the hands of a Scotch
metaphysician, for, was there not here an example of the _à priori_
argument, to use the old jargon, wherein the cause is assumed to
prove the effect, and the effect is then brought forward to prove the
cause--a trick of wisdom we are yet in the nineteenth century playing
every day?

“That is just what I want to know, Jean,” said he.

“And it’s just what I want to ken, too,” rejoined Jean, “for to tell
you God’s truth, sir,” she continued in a lower tone, “I hae something
on my conscience, and yet it’s no muckle either.”

“And what is that?” said he, expecting to get at something on which he
could rely, whatever it might be.

“Just this,” answered Jean. “Years agane, Gorthley came to me, and
said, ‘Jean Gilchrist, here is something for you,’ and I took it--it
was a purse o’ gowd,--and then he said, ‘I would die happy, Jean, if I
could think that Martha Bruce, who bears the mark, was the second born
of my daughters;’ and, looking at the purse, said I, ‘Weel, sir, if
that will mak ye happy, ye may be happy, for it was even so.’ Then said
he, ‘Will you stand to that, Jean?’ And I said, ‘Ay, will I, through
thick and thin;’ and when he went away, I began to consider if I had
dune wrang, but I couldna see it, for doesna the Bible say, that man
and wife are ane flesh? and if that be true, how could their children
be separate flesh? Weel then, whichever o’ the twa, the first or the
second born, carried the mark, they baith being ane flesh, behoved to
bear it, and so, if the ane bore it the other bore it, and if the other
bore it the ane bore it. Besides, wha doesna ken that twins are just ae
bairn cut in twa? They’re aye less than the single bairns, and isna a
double-yokit egg just twa eggs joined thegither into ane.”

A kind of logic common at the time, and which, indeed, touched upon
the most obscure question of metaphysics, and not very satisfactory to
Mr Bayne, who, however, knew the subtle character of the Scotch mind
too well to try a fall with so acute a dialectician. So, altogether
disappointed with his precognition he left and came away, meeting in
the passage Mr Pollock, who had been with Mrs Macintosh, and was now
on his way to Jean Gilchrist. They were very intimate, and did not
hesitate to compare notes, the result of which was that the case was to
realise once more the truth of the toast generally drunk by Edinburgh
practitioners at the end of the session, “The glorious uncertainty;”
and if Mr Pollock thought so before he examined Jean Gilchrist, his
opinion must have been pretty well confirmed by what she said. The
case, in short, was not one in which there is conflicting evidence,
and where the judges can make out the weight by a hair of prejudice;
it was a case in which there was no evidence at all as to which of the
girls was the heir; but, then, it was just on account of this equipoise
that the two claimants, Martha, helped by her mother on the one side,
and Sarah, supported by her lover, Walkinshaw, on the other, waxed the
more bitter; and the contention which had so long raged in Gorthley
House became hotter and hotter. Nor need we fancy that the writers
would try to get the right compromised in some way, where they had so
good a chance of making a money certainty out of a moral uncertainty;
and so the case went into court under two competing briefs, that is
just two claims by the daughters, each insisting to be served heir.
The witnesses, whose precognitions we have given, were examined; and
a great number of servants who had been in the family, who swore that
Gorthley himself always called Sarah Miss Bruce, and Mrs Bruce always
called Martha by that dignified title, so that the servants tried to
please both master and mistress by calling the one daughter or the
other miss, just according to the chance of being overheard by the
heads of the house. When before the sheriff, and when the claims were
equally suspended, a strange plea was set up by Sarah’s counsel, Mr
Fotheringham, to the effect that, taking the question of priority of
birth to be doubtful, the doubt could be resolved by a kind of _nobile
officium_ on the part of the father as the head of the house, and that
as Gorthley had declared for Sarah this should be held as sufficient;
but Mr Maitland answered this by saying that the question being one of
fact, and that fact coming more within the presumed knowledge of the
mother, ought to be settled by the voice of the mother, who declared
for Martha; and here again the argument being nearly equal, the judge
on the inquest was nonplussed. And thus it came to pass that the old
irony of the ancients, directed against a sow coming in place of
Minerva as a judge of some very fine matter of truth, turned out to be
in this case no irony at all, for the sow was here as good a judge
as Minerva. The scales were so nearly balanced that the mere breath
which conveyed the doubt might disperse the doubt by moving one of
the scales--a very fine irony in itself, in so much as all truth may
be resolved, in the far end, into the mere breath of man’s opinion.
At length the sheriff gave the cast of the scale to the side of the
mother, as the “_domestic witness_.”

But Sarah was, of course, dissatisfied; or, rather, Fotheringham, who
advised her to take the case before the Fifteen, by what is called an
Advocation, and so to be sure these lords got a burden thrown upon
them which cost them no little trouble. They got the case argued and
argued, and were in the end so mystified, that if they could have
decided that the question was undecidable, they would have been very
glad to have hung it up among the eternal dubieties as an everlasting
proof of “the glorious uncertainty;” but they could not agree even to
do that, for the entail could not be compromised or set aside, and so
they behoved to decide one way or another. Meanwhile, the case having
made a noise, a great number of people were collected in court on the
day when the judgment was to be finally given. And given it was so far,
for seven judges were for Sarah, and seven for Martha, so it came to
the president, who said, “I have read of a case somewhere in which
the judges drew cuts, and decided by the Goddess Chance in place of
justice; and, indeed, if the latter is blind, as they say she is, we
may take the one as well as the other as the umpire of the right or
the wrong. But there is one consideration which moves me in this case,
and that is, that as it is the wife’s duty to bear the children of the
family, so it is her privilege to know more about that interesting
affair than the husband, who is, as I understand, never present at the
mysteries of Lucina, and, therefore, I would be inclined to declare
that Martha was the first-born.”

“It’s a lee, my lord,” cried a shrill screaming voice from the court.
Whereat the judges directed their eyes with much amazement to the place
whence the scream came.

“And who are you,” said the president, “who dare to speak in a court of
justice?”

“I deny it’s a court o’ justice,” cried the voice again. “My name is
Janet Glennie, and it was me that had the first handlin’ o’ the bairns,
and I tell your lordship to your face, that you’re clean wrang, and ken
nae mair about the case than Jenkins did about the colour o’ the great
grandmother o’ his hen. I tell ye it was Sarah wha came first, and
Martha wi’ her strawberry came second, for I saw the mark wi’ my ain
een.”

A speech followed by the inevitable laugh of a curious audience, and
the better received that the people had always a satirical feeling
against the fifteen wise wigs. Nor was this late testimony too late:
Mrs Glennie was subsequently sworn, and the judgment went for Sarah. It
turned out that Mrs Glennie had been absent for a time from Scotland,
and, having, upon visiting Edinburgh, heard of the famous trial, made
it a point to be present. Nay, there was a little retribution in the
affair, for Lady Gorthley knew she was alive, and had reported her
death to serve her own ends.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




The Story of the Chalk Line.


For the truth of the story I am now to relate I have the word of a
godly minister of the Church of Scotland, whose father had been in the
house in Burnet’s Close, and had seen the two females and examined “the
chalk line” in the middle of the floor. I do not say this to conciliate
your belief; for perhaps if this were my object, I should be nearer
the attainment of it by asserting, as Mr Thackeray used to do when he
wanted his readers to believe him, that there is not a word of truth
in the whole affair. There is a certain species of fish in the Ganges
which is never happy but when it is pushing up against the stream; and
people, as civilisation goes on, find themselves so often cheated, that
they go by contraries, just as the old sorcerers divined by reading
backwards. But surely in this age of subtleties it is a pleasant thing
to think that you are so much the object of an author’s care as that
he would not only save you from thinking, but think for you; and so I
proceed to tell you of the personages in Burnet’s Close, leading from
the High Street to the Cowgate.

In a room of the second flat of the third tall tenement on your left
hand as you descend lived Martha and Mary Jopp. They were, so far as I
have been able to discover, the daughters of a writer of the name of
Peter Jopp. You cannot be wrong in supposing that they had been once
young, though, in regard to the aged, this is not always conceded by
those who are buoyant with the spirit of youth. Yes, these aged maidens
had not only been once young, they had been very fair and very comely.
They had passed through the spring and summer flowers without treading
upon the speckled serpent of the same colour. They had heard the song
of love where there was no risk of the deceptions of the siren. They
had been tempted; but they had resisted the temptation of some who
could well have returned their affection. Nor was this the result of
any want of natural sensibility; if it was not that they had too much
of that quality, which, if it is the source of pleasure, is also that
of pain--perhaps more of the latter than the former, though we dare not
say so in this our time of angelic perfection.

To be a little more particular upon a peculiarity of our two ladies,
which enters as rather a “loud colour” in the web of our story, there
was a sufficient reason for their celibacy. They had a mother who, as
the saying goes, was “a woman of price”--such a one as Solomon excepts
from so many, that I am afraid to mention the number. She was a good
Calvinist, without insisting too much for election and predestination.
She was affectionate, without the weakness which so often belongs to
doating mothers; and she possessed, along with the charm of universal
kindness, a strength of mind which demanded respect without diminishing
love. No wonder that her daughters loved her even to that extent that
neither of the two could think of leaving her so long as she lived.
An inclination this, or rather a resolution, which had been confirmed
in them by certain experiences they had had of what their mother had
suffered from having been deprived by death of an elder daughter, and
by marriage of a younger; the latter of whom had gone with her husband,
a Mr Darling, to Calcutta, under the patronage of Major Scott, the
friend of Warren Hastings.

But there was another reason which kept the sisters from marrying--one
which will, I suspect, be very slow to be believed; and that was,
their love for each other. But I am resolute in urging it, because,
in the first place, it is not absolutely against the experience of
mankind; and, secondly, because, while it forms a part of the story as
narrated to me, it is necessary as one of the two sides of a contrast,
without which I could not answer for a certain effect in my picture.
Certain, at least, it was that more than one external revolving body
in the shape of lovers came within the sphere of their attraction for
each other, and could produce no deflection in the lines of their
mutual attachment. It was said that one of them had been jilted. I do
not know; but the circumstance would explain a fact more certain that
the sisters, in their then lively humour of young blood, used to sing
a love-defiance song, which might have been both sport and earnest.
My informant gave me the words. It is a kind of rough mosaic, with
borrowed verses, yet worth recording:--

  A farmer’s daughter fair am I,
    As blithe as May-day morning,
  And when my lover passes by,
    I laugh at him wi’ scorning.
            Ha! ha! ha! fal lal la!
            Ha! ha! fal lal laldy!

  There came a cock to our father’s flock,
    And he wore a double kaim, O;
  He flapt his wings, and fain would craw,
    But craw he could craw nane, O.

  A braw young man came courting me,
    And swore his wife he’d make me;
  But when he knew my pounds were few,
    The rogue he did forsake me.

  Gae whistle on your thumb, young man,
    You left me wae and weary;
  But, now I’ve got my heart again,
    Gude faith, I’ll keep it cheery.

  There’s world’s room for you to pass,
    And room enough for Nan, O;
  The deil may tak her on his back
    Who dies for faithless man, O.

  There’s still as good fish in the sea
    As ever yet were taken;
  I’ll spread my net and catch again,
    Though I have been forsaken.
            Ha! ha! ha! &c.

A better medicine, I suspect, than an action of damages. But to
continue. The sisters read the same books, took the same walks, wrought
at the same work as steadfastly and lovingly as they worshipped the
same mother, and revered the memory of the same father--a remark this
last which helps us on to a point of our story; for the father had been
dead for some years, leaving the mother a competent annuity, besides a
residue, which would afford at least so much to the daughters as would
tocher them to a kind of independence, though not to a husband with
much hope of being benefited in a money point of view by marriage. But
the time came--as what time does not come, even to those who think in
the heyday of their happiness it will never come--when there would be
a change, when the charm of this threefold relation should cease.
The mother died, and with her the annuity; and the attraction she had
exercised over the daughters had just drawn them so far past the point
of the shaking of the blossoms of youth and beauty and hope, that their
affection for each other stood now no chance of being broken by even
one of those moral comets that burn up more incombustible bodies than
old spinsters with very small competences.

And so, with bleared eyes of uncontrollable grief, and no hope, and
a trifle of twenty pounds a-year each to be paid them by Mr David
Ross, writer, their father’s agent, our two spinsters took up their
solitary residence in the foresaid room in the second flat of the big
tenement in Burnet’s Close to which I have alluded. Even at the first
moment of their retreat they seem to have shaken off with the blossoms,
which, in the human plant no less than in the vegetable one, alone
contain the beauties and sweets of life--the stem being, alas, only
at best the custodier of an acid--much of their interest in the busy,
gossipping, scandalising, hating, and loving Edinburgh; but so far this
resistance to the charms of the outer world only served to make them
live even more and more to each other. And then, had they not the sweet
though melancholy solace of that Calvinistic tenet which imparted such
mildness and equanimity to the face of their beloved mother--even that
mysterious scroll which contains the ordination and predestination of
all things which shall ever come to pass? Yes; but even this solace was
modified by the regret that the portrait of that mother, painted by
no unskilful hand--a pupil of George Jameson’s--was not, as it ought
to have been, in that room hanging over the mantelpiece; the more by
reason that that picture had been surreptitiously taken away by their
sister Margaret when she sailed with her husband, Mr Darling, to India.
And would they not have it back? Mr Ross might tell them when he was
there on a certain evening.

“You have as good a right to it,” said the man of the law, “as your
sister; for I believe it was never given to her by your mother.”

“No more it ever was,” said Martha; “for did not our mother write
herself for it, but it never came; and she was to have got herself
painted again, but death came at the predestinated hour, and took away
her life, and with it all our happiness in this world.”

“Not all your happiness, Miss Martha,” rejoined the agent; “for have
you not your mutual affection left?--ay, and even your love for her who
is only removed to a distance--even among blessed spirits?--from whence
she is at this moment looking down upon you to bless that love which
you bear to each other, and which, I trust, will never decay.”

“I hope not,” said Mary, calmly; “but I remember how, when the evil
spirit took hold of us, and made us fretful and discontented with each
other, she calmed our rebellious spirits by a look so justly reproving,
and yet so mild and heavenly-like, that for very love of her we would
dote on each other the more. And now I think if we had that picture,
with the same eye as if still fixed on us, we would be secured against
all fretfulness; for O sir, we are all weak and wilful. Will you write
for it, Mr Ross? It would hang so well up there over the fire, where,
you see, there is an old nail, which seems to have been left by the
former tenant for the very purpose.”

“I will,” replied Mr Ross; “but I may as well tell you I have little
chance of success, for Margaret, I suspect, would nearly as soon
part with her life. Nor do I wonder at it; for the countenance of
your mother as there represented seems so far above that of ordinary
mortals, both in beauty and benignity, that methinks,”--and here Mr
Ross smiled in his own grave way,--“if I ever felt inclined to put down
six-and-eightpence against a client in place of three-and-fourpence,
that look of hers would bring back my sense of honesty. You know I have
Mrs Ross over the mantelpiece of my business room; and though she
never approached your mother in that peculiar expression, which your
father used to say to me, in a half-jocular way, humanised him into
that wonderful being, a conscientious writer, yet I have been benefited
in the same way by the mild light of my Agnes’s eyes.”

And Mr Ross stopped, in consequence of feeling a small tendency to a
thickening in the throat, which he seldom felt except when he had a
cold.

“And you will write Margaret, then?” resumed Martha.

“That I will,” said he; “but I do not say may Heaven bless my effort,
because you know Heaven has made up its mind on that and all other
subjects long ago.”

“Even from the foundations of the earth,” sighed Mary.

“Even so,” rejoined Mr Ross as he departed, leaving the sisters to
their small supper of a Newhaven haddock, each half of which was
sweetened to the receiver by the consciousness that the other was being
partaken of by her sister. And thereafter, having said their prayers,
they retired to the same bed, to fall asleep in each other’s arms,
without a regret that said arms were not a little more sinewy, or that
their faces did not wear beards, and to dream of their mother.

And it would have been well if affairs in Burnet’s Close had continued
to go on as smoothly as we have here indicated. Nor did there seem any
reason why they should not. The sisters had a sufficiency to live on;
they had no evil passions to disturb the equanimity of their thoughts;
they were religious, and resigned to the predestinated; they were among
“the elect,” that is, orthodoxically, they elected to think so, which
is the same thing. They had their house in order, and could afford to
have Peggy Fergusson to clean out the room occasionally, and to go the
few messages that their few wants required. But Time is a sower as well
as a reaper; and he casts about with an equally ready hand the seeds
of opinions and imaginations, the germs of feelings and the spores of
mildewed hopes: some for the young, some for the old, but all inferring
change from what was yesterday to what is to-day; from what is to-day
to what will be to-morrow. As the days passed into years, they appeared
to get shorter and shorter--a process with all of us, which no theory
can explain, if it is not against all theory; for if time is generated
by ideas, it should appear to go more slowly the more slowly those
ideas arise and pass, and yet the practical effect of the working is
the very reverse. But whatever were the changes that were taking place
in the habits and feelings of the two sisters, they were altogether
unconscious of them. The indisposition to go out and mix with their
friends was gradually increasing, as they felt, without being aware of
the feeling, that they had less and less in common with the ways of the
world; and the seldomer they went out, the seldomer their friends came
to see them, nor when they did come, did they receive any encouragement
to repeat the visit.

In all this I do not consider that I am describing human nature in the
aspect in which we generally see it; for we more often find in those
who are advancing into age a felt necessity for enlivenment, were it
for nothing else than to relieve them from solitary musings and the
perilous stuff of old memories; but here, as it will by and by be seen,
I have not to do with ordinary human nature. These sisters were fated
to be strange, and to do strange things. The indisposition to go out
degenerated in the course of some years into a love of total seclusion.
They never passed the threshold of their room; and as time went on,
their friends gradually renounced their efforts to get either of them
to change a purpose to which they seemed to have attained by the
sympathy of two natures exactly similar. They probably knew nothing of
the words of the poet, nor would they have cared for them:--

  “The world careth not a whit
  For him who careth not for it:
  One only duty and one right,
  That he be buried out of sight.”

But amidst this strange asceticism the one still remained to the other
as a dear, loving, and beloved sister; and if all the world should be
nothing to them, they would still be all the world to each other. The
seclusion had lasted five years since the death of the mother, and
still no decay of their mutual attachment could be observed.

It is here that commences the wonderful part of my story,--so
wonderful, indeed, that if I had not had at second-hand the testimony
of an eye-witness, confirmed by the traditions of the Close, I could
scarcely have ventured the recital I here offer; not that I consider
the facts as unnatural, but that the causes which change love into
hatred, and superinduce the latter often in a direct ratio to the
former, lie so deep, and are altogether so mysterious, that we cannot
understand the meaning of their being there, and far less how they
came to be there. Some strange and unaccountable change came over
these hitherto loving sisters, not only at the same time, but without
its having ever been ascertained that there was any physical or moral
reason for it. It began to show itself in small catches and sharper
rejoinders; minim points not discernible by their former love became
subjects of difference. Then the number of these increased where
the points of contact were, as one might say, infinite. They assert
that nature resents too close an affinity of affection; nor is this
altogether theory, for we see every day friendships which are so close
as to merge identities flare up into terrible hatreds; and we have
scriptural authority for the wrath of brothers. A plain man would
get out of the difficulty in a plain way. Those sisters had become
discontented because they had rejected that natural food of the mind
which is derived from an intercourse with the world; and who does not
know that discontent always finds a peg somewhere whereon to hang a
grievance. Where you have many people about you, you have a greater
choice of these pegs; if you are cooped up in a room with only one
human being within your vision, you are limited; but the pegs must
be got, and _are_ got, till the whole of the one object, a miserable
scapegoat, is covered with them.

Probably the plain man is right. I leave him to the philosopher, and
keep to my safe duty as a narrator.

The spirit of fault-finding once begun, waxed stronger and stronger
upon the food it generated by its own powers of production. Almost
everything either of them did appeared to be wrong in the eyes of
the other; and though for a time they tried to repress the sharp
feelings, which were wonders even to themselves, yet the check would
come, the taunt would follow, and the flash of the eye--an organ once
so expressive of love--succeeded within the passing minute. People who
merely meet may be supposed to seek for objects of disagreement. In the
room in Burnet’s Close the occasions were the very actions of natural
life; the movements of the body, the words of the mouth, the glances
of the eye, the thoughts of the mind, the misconstrued feelings of the
heart. Nor could they, as in most cases people who disagree may, get
away from each other. The repulsion which they felt towards a world
which offered them only reminiscences of past joys, was as a wall
enclosing the arena where these gladiatorial displays of feeling went
on from day to day, scarcely even interrupted by the holy Sabbath any
more than if they had come within the excepted category of necessity
and mercy.

According to my information, which descended to the minutest
particulars, this domestic disease went on for years, without any other
alteration than changes consistent with the laws of bodily ailment.
There were exasperations which, expending themselves in gratuitous
vituperations, receded into silent sullennesses, which lasted for
days. If it happened that no grievance could be discovered by the
microscopic vision, there was recourse to the grievance of yesterday,
which was called up to occupy the greedy vacuum; and then the changes
of aspect, of which, to the jaundiced eye, it was capable, were rung
upon it till they were physically wearied of the strife: while the
weariness only lasted till a renewed energy became ripe for another
onset. But however high the exasperation ever reached, they never came
to any violence. All the energy expended lay in the tongue, and the
eye, and the contorted muscles of irascible expression. It might have
been doubted whether, if any third party interfered, the one would not
have defended the other; but only to retain her as valuable property
for the onset of her peculiar privilege. And what is not less strange,
their religion, which was still maintained with the old Calvinistic
dogmatism, in place of overcoming the domestic demon, became subjected
to it, and changed its aspect according to the wish. Though incapable
of inflicting any bodily pain upon each other, they felt no compunction
in fostering the opinion that, while each was among the elect and
predestinated to everlasting glory, the other was in the scroll of the
reprobate, and ordained to eternal punishment in the brimstone fires,
and the howling horrors of the pit which is so peculiarly constituted
as to have no bottom. Each would read her Bible in her own chair, and
shoot against the other glances of triumph as she figured herself in
heaven looking down upon the torments of her sister in hell. And all
this while neither could have with her own hands inflicted the scratch
of a pin upon the body of the other. It was enough that each could
lacerate the feelings of the other as a vent to the exasperation which
embittered her own heart.

Still more remarkable, there were none of these reconciliations
that among relations often make amends for strife, and maintain
the equipoise so insisted upon by nature. We all know how these
ameliorations work in the married life and among lovers. In these cases
the anger seems to become the fuel of love. Not so with our sisters.
The worm was a never-dying one. But even in this desperate case there
was not wanting evidence of nature’s efforts towards an amelioration.
It was true they could not separate; they were objects necessary
to each other; nay, even if Mr Ross, who witnessed the working of
the domestic evil, had contrived to get them into separate rooms--a
proposal which was indeed made, and morbidly resisted--they would have
pursued each other in imagination with perhaps even more misery than
that which they inflicted on each other.

At length they came to a scheme of their own, so peculiar that it has
formed the incident of that story which has made it live in Edinburgh
through many years, and even to this day. The plan was, that they
should draw in the middle of the floor a distinct line of chalk, which
should be a boundary between them, over which neither the one nor the
other would ever set her foot. To make this plan workable, it was
necessary that the two ends of the room should be each self-contained
as regarded the necessary articles of household plenishing; and this,
by the aid of Mr Ross and Peggy Fergusson, was duly accomplished. One
of these articles was a big ha’ Bible for Martha, to stand against that
retained by Mary--in explanation of which I may inform the English
reader that the old Calvinists had nearly as much faith in the size
of their Bibles as in their contents. Nor was the strength of their
faith altogether irrespective of the kind of cover, and the manner
in which it was clasped. There was a great virtue in good strong
calfskin--sometimes with the rough hair upon it; and if the clasps were
of silver or gold, the volume had a peculiar merit. It was necessary,
therefore, that Martha’s Bible should be as big as Mary’s; and the
latter having been adorned by old Peter Jopp with silver clasps, so the
former was equally orthodox in this respect.

And so the chalk line was drawn. The only difficulty regarded the
fire; but this was got over by some ingenuity on the part of Peggy and
a workman, whereby the grate was altered so as to hold two cranes;
and so minute were the engineers, that the end of the chalk line came
up to the hearth, dividing it exactly into two halves; so that each
crane could be got at without overstepping the mark. This arrangement
lasted through eleven years; and if to that period we add the five
years of prior strife, this domestic war endured for sixteen years;
nor, according to the report of Mr Ross and Peggy, with that of the
good many curious visitors who contrived through various excuses to
get a view of the domestic arrangement, was that magic line which thus
separated two hearts once so loving ever transgressed; nay, it seemed
to become a point of honour in the two maidens. They might read their
Bibles on either side of it, and send their mute anathemas across it,
so as to reach the unhappy non-elect; but not a foot of either ever
trod upon the mark. The foot of time might dull it, but the ready
hand of either revived the line of demarcation, even as the feelings
were kept alive in undying vividness; all which may easily enough be
conceived; it contravenes no law of nature; but I fairly admit that I
must draw a strong bill on the credulity of poor modern haters of the
Armenian kind, when I state what was on all hands acknowledged, that
after the chalk truce--that is, for eleven years--the residents of
this room, divided so against itself, never interchanged a word with
each other. I freely admit that all traditions become incrusted by
the marvellous. We do not reject port wine because it has undergone a
certain process. Yes; but we do not swallow the crust, which is only
deposited sugar. So be it; and you are welcome to your advantage,
provided you admit that the raciness you admire is the consequence
of the deposit; and so, in my case, you may reject the eleven years’
silence of Martha and Mary Jopp, yet you cannot get quit of the tang of
the reported marvel. For my own part, I am a little sceptical myself;
but then I cannot prove the negative of a popular statement; and I
rather doubt if there are many religions in the world which are founded
on anything better than this defiance.

Towards the end of the eleventh year a new incident arose to change
perhaps the tenor of this strange drama. Martha Darling, a daughter
of the sister Margaret who went to India, was sent home to Mr Ross to
be educated in Scotland, where she was to remain till the homecoming
of her parents, who had become rich on the spoils of Cheyte Sing, or
the Begums of Oude, or some other unfortunate Indian victim. The
girl was generous, and full of young life; and Mr Ross became hopeful
that by introducing her to her aunts some instinctive feelings might
be called up in the breasts of the sisters which would break up the
old congelation. He told her the story of the chalk line, and got a
scream of a laugh for an answer, with the threat that she would force
her aunts to embrace, and weep, and be friends. Next day the visit
was made, and, designedly, without any intimation that the niece had
arrived in Scotland. On opening the door, Mr Ross found the two ladies
in that position in which he had so often before found them, each
sitting stiffly on her own side of the chalk line, and looking out of
her window into the close--for, as I should have stated before, the
room was supplied by two windows.

“Your niece from India--only arrived yesterday.”

No more time for prologue, for the girl flew forward, and taking
her elder aunt round the neck, hugged her very lovingly after the
Anglo-Indian fashion, and thereafter, making a spring over the line of
chalk, she ran to Aunt Mary, and performed the same operation upon her,
but with no emolliating result; the old petrefactions, which had become
harder by the passage of every wave of time, were not to be dissolved
or softened by the sparkling rill from the green sunny mountains. They
looked strangely only because they looked unnaturally; but that was
no reason why Martha the younger should change her nature, and so she
rattled away, every now and then casting her eye, with a laugh, at the
line of chalk.

“If I had you only in India,” she went on, “where the natives, when
they drink bang, dance such strange dances, you would laugh so. Shall I
show you?”

And without waiting for an answer, she began to make very pretty but
somewhat irregular revolving movements on the floor, whereby in a short
time, by the rapid motion of her small feet, she contrived to efface
the line of chalk.

“Now you can hardly see it,” she proceeded with shortened breath; “and
now, the nasty thing being gone, you are to cross and shake hands, and
kiss each other.”

But the good-natured girl’s efforts were useless. The sisters sat as
stiff in their chairs as if they had been the figures in a pagoda
irresponsive to the dance of the worshippers. Even the confident
will-power of youth, which under-estimates all difficulties, was
staggered by the resistance offered to its efforts, and the young
Martha was obliged to leave without attaining an object over which she
had been dreaming the preceding night. Next morning the chalk line was
renewed, the still air of the room in Burnet’s Close had recovered
its quietude from the oscillation produced by the young girl’s laugh,
and the demon of obstinacy sat enshrined in its niche which it had
occupied for so many years; nor had the after visits of the younger
Martha had any better effect towards the object that lay nearest to
her generous heart. And now a month had passed; a particular morning
rose--not marked by an asterisk in the calendar, and yet remarkable for
opening with the thickest gray dawn that had been observed for a time.
And here you may already see I am getting among the mists, where old
Dame Mystery, with her undefined lines, is ready to assume the forms
forecast by brooding fancy. The gloom in the old room still hung thick,
as the two maiden ladies moved slowly about, so like automatons, each
preparing her cup of tea. So sternly had custom occupied the place of
primary nature, that it would now have appeared more strange and out
of joint for them to speak than to be silent. And so, as the minutes
passed, the gray mist of the morning gave way to the struggling rays of
the sun, and now there was something to be seen--nay, something that
could not be unseen. Nor this the less by token that the eyes of both
our Martha and Mary were fixed as if by a spell upon that part of the
wall over the mantelpiece. There was hanging bodily, in the old frame,
and radiant with the old light, the real picture of their mother, for
the possession of which they had sighed for sixteen years. We may
easily conceive that it could not fail of an effect, even as free from
the connexion of any mystery as to how it came to be there. But the
question, if put by either to herself or her neighbour, could not be
answered in any way consistently with natural causes, for neither of
them had been out of the room--nay, neither had been in a condition
which could have been taken advantage of by any one who wished by a
trick to take them by surprise. Then how catching the superstitious
when it plays into the hand of our fears! As they looked with
spell-bound eyes on that apparition, and read once more the expression
in that blessed countenance that spoke peace and love,--reproof enough
to those who for so many long years had disobeyed her injunctions to
treat each other as sisters, and love each other even as she loved them
and they her,--they never doubted but that some unseen hand placed that
picture there for the end of chastening their rebellious hearts, and
bringing them back to that love which was enjoined even by Him whom
they worshipped as the very God of Love. It seemed as if they shook as
they gazed, and each one at intervals sought with a furtive glance the
face of the other. A charm was working among the old half-dead nerves
that for years had quivered with the passions of the devil. The revived
feelings of that olden time, when that mild loving mother was the
centre of their affections and bond of love between themselves, were in
a tumult below the hard crust of mutual hatred, that was breaking under
the touch of the finger of God; they were both of the elect, since God
took the trouble to chide them and recall them to their duty and their
obedience. The relentings in the hard faces, the rising tears in the
eyes of both, the tremors in the hands, all spoke eloquently to each
other; nor did they speak in vain; they rose as if by sympathy. “O
Martha!” “O Mary!” No more; the words were enough, and the two sisters
were locked in the arms of each other, drawing long sighs, and sobbing
convulsively.

A scene all this which, being apt to precipitate one of my disposition
into the gushing vein, I must leave. I shall be on somewhat safer
ground as I proceed to say what truth and probability equally require,
that the paroxysm being over, and the two having begun, even as they
had done of old, to make and sugar each other’s tea, to butter each
other’s bread, and even to break each other’s egg, or bone each other’s
small haddock--most delightful tricks of love, which selfishness knows
nothing of, and cannot compensate by any means within its power,--they
gradually began to doubt whether some kindly hand of flesh was not
concerned in producing the phenomenon of the picture. They had both
been sound asleep till nine o’clock, and Peggy Fergusson had in the
gray dawn been in the room doing her duty to the fire. But what
although the Indian elf, who had likely brought the picture home with
her from India, had been put up by Mr Ross to a little deception, and
had slipt in in the wake of Peggy, and hung it on the nail which had
been so generously left by the old tenant? nay, these spinsters, apart
from the delusion produced by the demon of obstinacy, were sensible
women; and in the pleasant talk that now flowed like limpid water down
a very pretty valley with flowers on either side they came to the
conclusion, with--Oh, wonder!--a laugh fighting for utterance among the
dry muscles, that the fact was just so as we have stated it. What then.
Was not the effect admirable--yea, delectable?

A conclusion this which derived no little confirmation from the fact
that the young Anglo-Indian came bouncing into the room about eleven
o’clock, crying, in her spirited way, “Ah, I see it is all right,” and
yet never saying a word of the said picture; but, indeed, the fairy had
some work to do other than of revealing the secrets of Titania to her
victims, for she straightway set to work with a wet cloth to eradicate
every trace of that devil-invented line of chalk which had so long kept
asunder good amiable spirits. Nor was she contented with even this, for
to satisfy her impish whims, she got her now changed aunts, nothing
loth, to cross and recross the place of the now defaced line, till all
notion of the division was taken out of their minds.

It is a pleasant thing for me to have authority to say that this
miraculous change was not destined to be merely temporary. The flow
from the once secluded fountains of feeling continued its stream--nay,
it seemed as if the two old maidens could not love each other enough,
and they had been often heard to confess that one hour of pure nature
was worth all the sixteen years of factitious opposition to her
dictates. So true it is that, let us deplore as we may the many ills
of life, we shall never diminish them by damming up the fountains of
feeling and driving the emotions back upon the heart. Then fortune
favours those who are true to nature, who is the mother of fortune, and
all other occult agencies. The nabob and his wife came home the next
year, and set up a great establishment in our old city. The spinsters
were gradually drawn out again into that world which they had so
foolishly left--we use the word deliberately, for hermits carry with
them into their cells a worse world than they leave behind, however
unsteady, however cruel, and however vain, that may at times seem to
be;--nay, we can say with a good conscience that our two sisters became
the very darlings of a flock of young nephews and nieces; sometimes
danced in a reel of ancient maidens; gadded gaily about; sipt their
scandal, and helped like good citizens to spread the sweet poison; and
passed many years as happily as can be the fortune of those who are
contented to live according to the laws of nature.

[Illustration]


_Ballantyne & Company, Printers, Edinburgh._




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

  The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is
    entered into the public domain.