SAMBO.
No one was so sorry for the death of Sir George, or had so many kind
words to say in memory of him, as Mistress Croale. Neither was her
sorrow only because she had lost so good a customer, or even because
she had liked the man: I believe it was much enhanced by a vague doubt
that after all she was to blame for his death. In vain she said to
herself, and said truly, that it would have been far worse for him,
and Gibbie too, had he gone elsewhere for his drink; she could not get
the account settled with her conscience. She tried to relieve herself
by being kinder than before to the boy; but she was greatly hindered
in this by the fact that, after his father’s death, she could not get
him inside her door. That his father was not there--would not be there
at night, made the place dreadful to him. This addition to the trouble
of mind she already had on account of the nature of her business, was
the cause, I believe, why, after Sir George’s death, she went down the
hill with accelerated speed. She sipped more frequently from her own
bottle, soon came to “tasting with” her customers, and after that her
descent was rapid. She no longer refused drink to women, though for a
time she always gave it under protest; she winked at card-playing; she
grew generally more lax in her administration; and by degrees a mist
of evil fame began to gather about her house. Thereupon her enemy, as
she considered him, the Rev. Clement Sclater, felt himself justified
in moving more energetically for the withdrawal of her license, which,
with the support of outraged neighbours, he found no difficulty in
effecting. She therefore _flitted_ to another parish, and opened a
worse house in a worse region of the city--on the river-bank, namely,
some little distance above the quay, not too far to be within easy
range of sailors, and the people employed about the vessels loading
or discharging cargo. It pretended to be only a lodging-house, and
had no license for the sale of strong drink, but nevertheless, one
way and another, a great deal was drunk in the house, and, as always,
card-playing, and sometimes worse things were going on, getting more
vigorous ever as the daylight waned; frequent quarrels and occasional
bloodshed was the consequence. For some time, however, nothing very
serious brought the place immediately within the conscious ken of the
magistrates.
In the second winter after his father’s death, Gibbie, wandering
everywhere about the city, encountered Lucky Croale in the
neighbourhood of her new abode; down there she was _Mistress_ no
longer, but, with a familiarity scarcely removed from contempt, was
both mentioned and addressed as Lucky Croale. The repugnance which
had hitherto kept Gibbie from her having been altogether to her place
and not to herself, he at once accompanied her home, and after that
went often to the house. He was considerably surprised when first he
heard words from her mouth for using which she had formerly been in
the habit of severely reproving her guests; but he always took things
as he found them, and when ere long he had to hear such occasionally
addressed to himself, when she happened to be more out of temper than
usual, he never therefore questioned her friendship. What more than
anything else attracted him to her house, however, was the jolly
manners and open-hearted kindness of most of the sailors who frequented
it, with almost all of whom he was a favourite; and it soon came about
that, when his ministrations to the incapable were over, he would
spend the rest of the night more frequently there than anywhere else;
until at last he gave up, in a great measure, his guardianship of the
drunk in the streets for that of those who were certainly in much
more danger of mishap at Lucky Croale’s. Scarcely a night passed when
he was not present at one or more of the quarrels of which the place
was a hot-bed; and as he never by any chance took a part, or favoured
one side more than another, but confined himself to an impartial
distribution of such peace-making blandishments as the ever-springing
fountain of his affection took instinctive shape in, the wee baronet
came to be regarded, by the better sort of the rough fellows, almost as
the very identical sweet little cherub, sitting perched up aloft, whose
department in the saving business of the universe it was, to take care
of the life of poor Jack. I do not say that he was always successful
in his endeavours at atonement, but beyond a doubt Lucky Croale’s
house was a good deal less of a hell through the haunting presence
of the child. He was not shocked by the things he saw, even when he
liked them least. He regarded the doing of them much as he had looked
upon his father’s drunkenness--as a pitiful necessity that overtook
men--one from which there was no escape, and which caused a great need
for Gibbies. Evil language and coarse behaviour alike passed over him,
without leaving the smallest stain upon heart or conscience, desire or
will. No one could doubt it who considered the clarity of his face and
eyes, in which the occasional but not frequent expression of keenness
and promptitude scarcely even ruffled the prevailing look of unclouded
heavenly babyhood.
If any one thinks I am unfaithful to human fact, and overcharge the
description of this child, I on my side doubt the extent of the
experience of that man or woman. I admit the child a rarity, but
a rarity in the right direction, and therefore a being with whom
humanity has the greater need to be made acquainted. I admit that
the best things are the commonest, but the highest types and the
best combinations of them are the rarest. There is more love in the
world than anything else, for instance; but the best love and the
individual in whom love is supreme are the rarest of all things. That
for which humanity has the strongest claim upon its workmen, is the
representation of its own best; but the loudest demand of the present
day is for the representation of that grade of humanity of which men
see the most--that type of things which could never have been but
that it might pass. The demand marks the commonness, narrowness,
low-levelled satisfaction of the age. It loves its own--not that which
might be, and ought to be its own--not its better self, infinitely
higher than its present, for the sake of whose approach it exists. I
do not think that the age is worse in this respect than those which
have preceded it, but that vulgarity, and a certain vile contentment
swelling to self-admiration, have become more vocal than hitherto; just
as unbelief, which I think in reality less prevailing than in former
ages, has become largely more articulate, and thereby more loud and
peremptory. But whatever the demand of the age, I insist that that
which _ought_ to be presented to its beholding, is the common good
uncommonly developed, and that not because of its rarity, but because
it is truer to humanity. Shall I admit those conditions, those facts,
to be true exponents of _humanity_, which, except they be changed,
purified, or abandoned, must soon cause that humanity to cease from its
very name, must destroy its very being? To make the admission would be
to assert that a house may be divided against itself, and yet stand. It
is the noble, not the failure from the noble, that is the true human;
and if I must show the failure, let it ever be with an eye to the final
possible, yea, imperative, success. But in our day, a man who will
accept any oddity of idiosyncratic development in manners, tastes, or
habits, will refuse, not only as improbable, but as inconsistent with
human nature, the representation of a man trying to be merely as noble
as is absolutely essential to his being--except, indeed, he be at the
same time represented as failing utterly in the attempt, and compelled
to fall back upon the imperfections of humanity, and acknowledge them
as its laws. Its improbability, judged by the experience of most men, I
admit; its unreality in fact, I deny; and its absolute unity with the
true idea of humanity, I believe and assert.
It is hardly necessary for me now to remark, seeing my narrative must
already have suggested it, that what kept Gibbie pure and honest was
the rarely-developed, ever-active love of his kind. The human face
was the one attraction to him in the universe. In deep fact, it is so
to everyone; I state but the commonest reality in creation; only in
Gibbie the fact had come to the surface; the common thing was his in
uncommon degree and potency. Gibbie knew no music except the voice of
man and woman; at least no other had as yet affected him. To be sure he
had never heard much. Drunken sea-songs he heard every night almost;
and now and then on Sundays he ran through a zone of psalm-singing;
but neither of those could well be called music. There hung a caged
bird here and there at a door in the poorer streets; but Gibbie’s love
embraced the lower creation also, and too tenderly for the enjoyment of
its melody. The human bird loved liberty too dearly to gather anything
but pain from the song of the little feathered brother who had lost it,
and to whom he could not minister as to the drunkard. In general he ran
from the presence of such a prisoner. But sometimes he would stop and
try to comfort the naked little Freedom, disrobed of its space; and on
one occasion was caught in the very act of delivering a canary that
hung outside a little shop. Any other than wee Gibbie would have been
heartily cuffed for the offence, but the owner of the bird only smiled
at the would-be liberator, and hung the cage a couple of feet higher
on the wall. With such a passion of affection, then, finding vent in
constant action, is it any wonder Gibbie’s heart and hands should be
too full for evil to occupy them even a little?
One night in the spring, entering Lucky Croale’s common room, he saw
there for the first time a negro sailor, whom the rest called Sambo,
and was at once taken with his big, dark, radiant eyes, and his white
teeth continually uncovering themselves in good-humoured smiles. Sambo
had left the vessel in which he had arrived, was waiting for another,
and had taken up his quarters at Lucky Croale’s. Gibbie’s advances he
met instantly, and in a few days a strong mutual affection had sprung
up between them. To Gibbie Sambo speedily became absolutely loving and
tender, and Gibbie made him full return of devotion.
The negro was a man of immense muscular power, like not a few of his
race, and, like most of them, not easily provoked, inheriting not a
little of their hard-learned long-suffering. He bore even with those
who treated him with far worse than the ordinary superciliousness of
white to black; and when the rudest of city boys mocked him, only
showed his teeth by way of smile. The ill-conditioned among Lucky
Croale’s customers and lodgers were constantly taking advantage of his
good nature, and presuming upon his forbearance; but so long as they
confined themselves to mere insolence, or even bare-faced cheating, he
endured with marvellous temper. It was possible, however, to go too far
even with him.
One night Sambo was looking on at a game of cards, in which all the
rest in the room were engaged. Happening to laugh at some turn it took,
one of them, a Malay, who was losing, was offended, and abused him.
Others objected to his having fun without risking money, and required
him to join in the game. This for some reason or other he declined,
and when the whole party at length insisted, positively refused.
Thereupon they all took umbrage, nor did most of them make many steps
of the ascent from displeasure to indignation, wrath, revenge; and then
ensued a row. Gibbie had been sitting all the time on his friend’s
knee, every now and then stroking his black face, in which, as insult
followed insult, the sunny blood kept slowly rising, making the balls
of his eyes and his teeth look still whiter. At length a savage from
Greenock threw a tumbler at him. Sambo, quick as a lizard, covered his
face with his arm. The tumbler falling from it, struck Gibbie on the
head--not severely, but hard enough to make him utter a little cry. At
that sound, the latent fierceness came wide awake in Sambo. Gently as
a nursing mother he set Gibbie down in a corner behind him, then with
one rush sent every Jack of the company sprawling on the floor, with
the table and bottles and glasses atop of them. At the vision of their
plight his good humour instantly returned, he burst into a great hearty
laugh, and proceeded at once to lift the table from off them. That
effected, he caught up Gibbie in his arms, and carried him with him to
bed.
In the middle of the night Gibbie half woke, and, finding himself
alone, sought his father’s bosom; then, in the confusion between
sleeping and waking, imagined his father’s death come again. Presently
he remembered it was in Sambo’s arms he fell asleep, but where he was
now he could not tell: certainly he was not in bed. Groping, he pushed
a door, and a glimmer of light came in. He was in a closet of the
room in which Sambo slept--and something was to do about his bed. He
rose softly and peeped out. There stood several men, and a struggle
was going on--nearly noiseless. Gibbie was half-dazed, and could not
understand; but he had little anxiety about Sambo, in whose prowess he
had a triumphant confidence. Suddenly came the sound of a great gush,
and the group parted from the bed and vanished. Gibbie darted towards
it. The words, “_O Lord Jesus!_” came to his ears, and he heard no
more: they were poor Sambo’s last in this world. The light of a street
lamp fell upon the bed: the blood was welling, in great thick throbs,
out of his huge black throat. They had bent his head back, and the gash
gaped wide.
For some moments Gibbie stood in ghastly terror. No sound except a low
gurgle came to his ears, and the horror of the stillness overmastered
him. He never could recall what came next. When he knew himself again,
he was in the street, running like the wind, he knew not whither. It
was not that he dreaded any hurt to himself; horror, not fear, was
behind him.
His next recollection of himself was in the first of the morning, on
the lofty chain-bridge over the river Daur. Before him lay he knew
not what, only escape from what was behind. His faith in men seemed
ruined. The city, his home, was frightful to him. Quarrels and curses
and blows he had been used to, and amidst them life could be lived. If
he did not consciously weave them into his theories, he unconsciously
wrapped them up in his confidence, and was at peace. But the last night
had revealed something unknown before. It was as if the darkness had
been cloven, and through the cleft he saw into hell. A thing had been
done that could not be undone, and he thought it must be what people
called _murder_. And Sambo was such a good man! He was almost as good a
man as Gibbie’s father, and now he would not breathe any more! Was he
gone where Gibbie’s father was gone? Was it the good men that stopped
breathing and grew cold? But it was those wicked men that had _deaded_
Sambo! And with that his first vague perception of evil and wrong in
the world began to dawn.
He lifted his head from gazing down on the dark river. A man was
approaching the bridge. He came from the awful city! Perhaps he
wanted him! He fled along the bridge like a low-flying water-bird. If
another man had appeared at the other end, he would have got through
between the rods, and thrown himself into the river. But there was no
one to oppose his escape; and after following the road a little way
up the river, he turned aside into a thicket of shrubs on the nearly
precipitous bank, and sat down to recover the breath he had lost more
from dismay than exertion.
The light grew. All at once he descried, far down the river, the
steeples of the city. Alas! alas! there lay poor black Sambo, so dear
to wee Sir Gibbie, motionless and covered with blood! He had two red
mouths now, but was not able to speak a word with either! They would
carry him to a churchyard and lay him in a hole to lie there for ever
and ever. Would all the good people be laid into holes and leave Gibbie
quite alone? Sitting and brooding thus, he fell into a dreamy state,
in which, brokenly, from here and there, pictures of his former life
grew out upon his memory. Suddenly, plainer than all the rest, came
the last time he stood under Mistress Croale’s window, waiting to help
his father home. The same instant, back to the ear of his mind came
his father’s two words, as he had heard them through the window--“_Up
Daurside._”
“Up Daurside!”--Here he was upon Daurside--a little way up too: he
would go farther up. He rose and went on, while the great river kept
flowing the other way, dark and terrible, down to the very door inside
which lay Sambo with the huge gape in his big throat.
Meantime the murder came to the knowledge of the police, Mistress
Croale herself giving the information, and all in the house were
arrested. In the course of their examination, it came out that wee Sir
Gibbie had gone to bed with the murdered man, and was now nowhere to
be found. Either they had murdered him too, or carried him off. The
news spread, and the whole city was in commotion about his fate. It
was credible enough that persons capable of committing such a crime on
such an inoffensive person as the testimony showed poor Sambo, would
be capable also of throwing the life of a child after that of the man
to protect their own. The city was searched from end to end, from
side to side, and from cellar to garret. Not a trace of him was to be
found--but indeed Gibbie had always been easier to find than to trace,
for he had no belongings of any sort to betray him. No one dreamed of
his having fled straight to the country, and search was confined to the
city.
The murderers were at length discovered, tried, and executed. They
protested their innocence with regard to the child, and therein
nothing appeared against them beyond the fact that he was missing. The
result, so far as concerned Gibbie, was, that the talk of the city,
where almost everyone knew him, was turned, in his absence, upon his
history; and from the confused mass of hearsay that reached him, Mr.
Sclater set himself to discover and verify the facts. For this purpose
he burrowed about in the neighbourhoods Gibbie had chiefly frequented,
and was so far successful as to satisfy himself that Gibbie, if he was
alive, was Sir Gilbert Galbraith, Baronet; but his own lawyer was able
to assure him that not an inch of property remained anywhere attached
to the title. There were indeed relations of the boy’s mother, who
were of some small consequence in a neighbouring county, also one in
business in Glasgow, or its neighbourhood, reported wealthy; but these
had entirely disowned her because of her marriage. All Mr. Sclater
discovered besides was, in a lumber-room next the garret in which Sir
George died, a box of papers--a glance at whose contents showed that
they must at least prove a great deal of which he was already certain
from other sources. A few of them had to do with the house in which
they were found, still known as the _Auld Hoose o’ Galbraith_; but most
of them referred to property in land, and many were of ancient date. If
the property were in the hands of descendants of the original stock,
the papers would be of value in their eyes; and, in any case, it would
be well to see to their safety. Mr. Sclater therefore had the chest
removed to the garret of the manse, where it stood thereafter, little
regarded, but able to answer for more than itself.