With these feelings among the lecturers, we may easily fancy

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THE COURT OF CACUS;

Or, The Story of Burke and Hare.

by

ALEXANDER LEIGHTON,

Author of "Curious Storied Traditions of Scottish Life," etc.

London:

Houlston and Wright, Paternoster Row.

Edinburgh: W. P. Nimmo, St David Street.

1861.

Edinburgh:

Printed by Ballantyne and Company,

Paul's Work.

PREFACE.

I have not written this book,--narrating a series of tragedies

unprecedented in the history of mankind, as well for the number of victims

and the depth of their sufferings as for the sordid temptation of the

actors,--without a proper consideration of what is due to the public and

myself. If I had thought I was to contribute to the increase of a taste

for moral stimulants, said to be peculiarly incident to our age--and yet,

I suspect, as strong in all bygone times--and without any countervailing

advantage to morals and the welfare of society, I would have desisted from

my labours. But, being satisfied that what has really occurred on the

stage of the world, however involving the dignity of our nature or

revolting to human feelings, must and will be known in some way, wherever

there are eyes to read or ears to hear, nay, was intended to be known by

Him through whose permission it was allowed to be, I consider it a

benefaction that the knowledge which kills shall be accompanied by the

knowledge which cures. Nay, were it possible, which it is not, to keep

from succeeding generations cases of great depravity punished for example,

and atoned for by penitence, the man who tried to conceal them would be

acting neither in obedience to God's providence nor for the good of the

people. We know what the Bible records of the doings of depraved men, and

we know also for what purpose; and may we not follow in the steps of the

inspired?

But a slight survey of the nature of the mind may satisfy any one, not

necessarily a philosopher, that it requires as its natural food examples

of evil with the punishment and the cure. If it had been so ordered that

there were not in the soil of the heart congenital germs of wickedness

ready to spring up and branch into crimes under favouring circumstances,

which the complications of society are eternally producing, and that,

consequently, all evil was sheer imitation, something might be said for

concealing the thing to be imitated, even at the expense of losing the

antidote. Even in that case the "huddlers-up" would not be very

philosophical or very sensible; religious they could not be, because the

supposition is adverse to the most fundamental truth of Christianity--for,

as the imitation must of necessity be admitted to be catching, where so

many are caught, the deterring influences would be more necessary. But as

all must admit that the evil comes of itself and the antidote from man,

those who would conceal the latter must allow to the former its full sway.

In all this, I do not overlook the benefits of abstract representations of

the beauty of virtue and the ugliness of vice. These belong to the

department of the imagination, where no principle of action resides; and

every one knows that the images must be embodied, in particular instances

taken from the real world of flesh and blood, so that the historian of

real occurrences must still work as an adjunct even to the fancy. If it be

said that he narrates stories that are revolting, the answer would seem to

be that, as the law still justifies example, and society calls for it, the

objection that the interest of a story is _too deep_ can only be used by

those who view the records of wickedness as a stimulant and not as a

terror, or those who, amidst the still-recurring daily murders, consider

society as beyond the need of amendment. The objection is thus an

adjection. Fortunately, none of us are acquainted with _amiable_

enormities, and the longer these remain unknown to us, the better for us

and mankind; so that it seems to follow, that he who can render the acted

crimes of history as disagreeable and hateful as they can be made, even

with the aid of the dark shadows of his fancy, performs an act favourable

to the interests of society. Yet I have done my best to save from revolt

the feelings of the virtuous, as far as is consistent with the moral

effect intended by Providence to be produced on the vicious.

YORK LODGE, TRINITY, _September 1861_.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

FIRST APPEARANCE IN SURGEON'S SQUARE, 1

INTERCALARY, 8

THE YOUNG AMATEURS, 22

THE REGULAR STAFF, 42

SYMPATHISING SEXTONS, DOCTORS, AND RELATIVES, 53

PREYING ON EACH OTHER, 66

RESUMPTION OF THE GREAT DRAMA, 77

THE QUATERNION, 90

THE OPENING OF THE COURT--THE OLD WOMAN OF GILMERTON, 107

THE MOTHER AND DAUGHTER, 119

THE GRANDMOTHER AND THE DUMB BOY, 132

THE STRAY WAIFS, 145

THE RELATIVE, 154

THE STUDY FOR THE ARTIST, 163

DAFT JAMIE, 179

THE BRISK LITTLE OLD WOMAN, 194

THE DISCOVERY, 202

THE COMPLICITY OF THE DOCTORS, 216

THE TRIAL, 230

THE JAIL, 251

VEJOVE, 259

THE EXHIBITION, 271

THE PROSECUTION AGAINST HARE, 283

THE HUNT OUT, 292

THE FINAL CAUSE, 306

First Appearance in Surgeon's Square.

When the gloaming was setting in of an evening in the autumn of 1827, and

when the young students of Dr Knox's class had covered up those remains of

their own kind from which they had been trying to extract nature's

secrets, one was looking listlessly from the window into the Square. The

place was as quiet as usual, silent and sad enough to gratify a fancy that

there existed some connexion between the stillness and the work carried on

from day to day and night to night in these mysterious recesses; for,

strange enough, whatever curiosity might be felt by the inhabitants as to

what was done there, few were ever seen within that area except those in

some way connected with the rooms. So was it the more likely that our

young student's eye should have been attracted by the figure of a man

moving stealthily under the shade of the houses. Then he looked more

intently to ascertain whether he was not one of the regular staff of

body-snatchers who supplied "the thing," as they called it. But no; the

stranger, whoever he might be, was neither "Merryandrew," nor "the Spune,"

nor "the Captain," nor any other of the gouls,--some half-dozen,--yet he

would have done no discredit to the fraternity either as to dress or

manner: little and thick-set, with a firm round face, small eyes, and

Irish nose, a down-looking sleazy dog, who, as he furtively turned his eye

up to the window, seemed to think he had no right to direct his vision

beyond the parallel of a man's pocket.

The student, who could dissect living character no less than he could dead

tissue, immediately suspected that this meditative "worshipper of the

sweets of eve" was there upon business, but, being probably new to the

calling, he was timid, if not bashful. Yes, bashful; we do not retract the

word, comely as it is, for where, in all this wide world of sin and

shamelessness, could we suppose it possible to find a man who lives upon

it, and is shone on by its sun, and cheered by its flowers, capable of

selling the body of his fellow-creature for gold without having his face

suffused with blood, cast up by the indignant heart, at least for the

first time? And perhaps it was the first time to this new-comer. But in

whatever condition the strange man might be, the student had got over

_his_ weakness, that is, nature's strength, and, resolving to test the

lounger, he went down, and, shewing himself at the door, beckoned the

bashful one forward.

"Were you looking for any one?" said he, as he peered into the

down-looking face, where there never had been a blush.

"'Mph!--are you Dr Knox?"

"No; but I am one of his students," was the reply of the young man, who

was now nearly satisfied of the intention of the stranger.

"And, sure, I'm not far wrong thin, afther all."

"And I may suit your purpose as well, perhaps."

"Perhaps."

"Well, speak out; don't be afraid. Have you got 'the thing?'"

"Doun't know what you mean."

"Ah! not an old hand, I perceive. You were never here before?"

"No."

"And don't know what to say?"

"No."

And the bashful man again turned his gloomy eyes to the ground, and didn't

know what to do with those hands of his, which were not made for

kid--perhaps for skin of another kind. And shouldn't this hardened student

have been sorry for a man in such confusion; but he wasn't--nay, he had no

sympathy with his refinement.

"Why, man, don't you speak out?" he said impatiently.

"There's some one coming through the Square there," was the reply, as the

man looked furtively to a side.

"Come in here, then," said the student, as he pulled him into a large room

where there were three young men who acted as Knox's assistants.

And there they were in the midst of a great number of coarse tables, with

one large one in the middle, whereon were deposited--each having its

portion--masses or lumps of some matter which could not be seen by reason

of all of them being covered with pieces of cloth--once white, but now

dirty gray, as if they had been soiled with clammy hands for weeks or

months. Nor were these signs, though unmistakeable to even the neophyte,

all that there spoke with a terrible eloquence of man's lowly destiny upon

earth; ay, and of man's pride too, even that pride of science which makes

such a fool of him in the very midst of the evidences of his corruption;

for although the windows were opened a little way, the choking air, thick

with gases which, in other circumstances, the free wind carries off to

dissipate and purify in the storm, pressed heavily upon the lungs, so that

even the uninitiated shrank with unfeigned feeling, as if he shuddered

under an awe that was perfectly foreign to his rough nature.

"Sure, and I'm among the dead," said the man, whom the reader will have

discovered to be an Irishman; "and I have something ov that kind to----"

"Sell," added one assistant sharply, as, in his scientific ardour, he

anticipated the merchant.

"Yes."

And now the bashful man was relieved of his burden of shame, light or

heavy as you please; but we verily say of _some_ weight, as we have him at

the beginning of a career which made the world ring till the echoes might

have disturbed the gods, and we know that he was not otherwise without

feelings pertaining to humanity; nay, we know, and shall tell, that on ONE

occasion pity suffused an eye that was destined to be oftener and longer

red with the fires of cruelty than was ever before in the world's history

the orb of a human being.

"And what do you give for _wun_?" he whispered, as he sidled up to the ear

of the young anatomist who had been speaking to him.

"Sometimes as high as £10."

And for certain, if the student had been curious enough to estimate the

effect of such words upon such a man, to whom "ten pennies" would have

been words of inspiration, he would have seen in that eye, no longer dull

and muddy, the first access of that demon mammon, as by the touch upon the

heart it raised the first pulses of a fever which was to grow and grow,

till it dried up into a parched and senseless thing the fountain of pity;

for, however inoperative, we are bound to say it was still there, as if

abiding God's judgments--and transform one nature altogether into

another--_for a purpose_.

"And wouldn't you give a pound more for a fresh wun?" said he, with that

intoxication of hope which sometimes makes a beggar play with a new-born

fortune.

"Sometimes more and sometimes less," replied the other; "but 'the thing'

must always be seen."

"And by my sowl it is a good thing, and worth the money any how."

"Where is it?"

"At home."

"Then if you will bring it here about ten it will be examined, and you

will get your money; and since you are a beginner, I may tell you, you had

better bring it in a box."

"And have we not a tea-chest all ready, which howlds it nate, and will not

my friend help me to bring it?"

"Well, mind the hour, and be upon your guard that no one sees you."

And so the man, however much an adult in the common immorality of the

world, in this singular crime as yet an infant, left to complete his sale

of merchandise. It would not be easy to figure his thoughts,--perhaps more

difficult to estimate his feelings,--yet it might be for good that we

could analyse these states of the mind, which are nought other than

diseases, that we might apply the cure which God has vouchsafed to our

keeping; even as that student strove to inquire into the secrets of the

body, that he might learn how to deal with the living frame when it is

out of order, or, perhaps, hastening to a premature dissolution.

That man was William Burke, and we say this as a historian might have

said, that man was Alexander of Macedon, or that Julius Caesar, or that

Napoleon--all equally great, or at least great with the difference that

the first _as yet_ only desecrated the temple for money, and the others

took from it the deity for ambition. Ay, and with this difference also,

which time was to shew, that while there have been many slaughtering

kings, there never was but one William Burke.

Intercalary.

The ardour of the study of anatomy was in the youth, and it was there from

sympathy; yea, for years before, the Square and the College had been under

the fervour of competition. Nor was this fervour limited to the Scottish

metropolis, from which the fame of the successive Monroes had gone forth

over the world. There had arisen Barclay, who, as an extra-academical

lecturer, had the faculty of inspiring his students with all the zeal

which he himself possessed, and to his class in the Square there had come

students from England and Ireland, as well as foreign parts. Even in prior

times, when the teaching was almost limited to the college, the reputation

of the professors had so accumulated _élèves_ that Scotland groaned, and

groaned ineffectually, under the invasion of her sacred graveyards. The

country teemed with stories, in which there figured the midnight

adventures of those strange men who gained a living by supplying, at all

hazards, what was so peremptorily required in the scientific hall and its

adjacent rooms.[1] Anxious mourners visited by the light of the moon the

places where their dear relatives lay entombed, as if they could thereby

satisfy themselves that the beloved bodies still rested there in peace,

though it was certain that the artists became in a short time so

proficient in their work that they could leave a grave apparently as

entire as it was at the time when the mourners deposited their burden.

That these adventures should have taken strange and sometimes

grimly-ludicrous turns might have been expected, and yet it is more true

that they transcended belief.

There was one long current in Leven in Fife of a character more like

fiction than truth. A middle-aged man of the name of Henderson had died

of an acute fever, and was buried in due time. He left a widow and

daughter, and we need not speak, even to those who have not experienced

such privation, of the deep valley of grief through which it takes so long

a time for the light of a living hope to penetrate, if, in some instances,

it ever penetrates at all. Yet people must live, and the widow was to keep

the small public-house in the skirts of the town which her husband had

conducted. Six days had passed since the funeral, when one night, at a

late hour, two men asked and got admittance for the purpose of

refreshment, one of them, according to their statement, having been taken

ill. They were introduced through a dark lobby into a room, where there

was one of those close beds so common in Scotland, and left there with the

drink they had ordered. By and by a loud knock came to the door, and the

voice of an officer demanded to know if some thieves who had broken into a

neighbouring house had there taken refuge. The noise and the impending

search had reached the ears of the two men who had entered shortly before,

and having had some good reason for being afraid of justice, they took

advantage of a window and got out, but they had made so much noise in

their flight, that the officers were directed to a pursuit, in which,

however, they ultimately failed. On their return they thought of examining

the room, with a view to ascertain whether the supposed thieves had left

in their hurry any of the booty; but all that they found was an empty bag,

which they took away with them for the purpose of an expected

identification. The confusion having ceased, the widow, in the depth of

her grief for her departed husband, went into the room to betake herself

to bed. She approached it for the purpose of folding it down, and in an

instant was transfixed; before her on the bed lay the dead body of her

husband in those very grave-clothes made by her own hands, and in which,

six days before, he had been buried. The explanation of the mystery was

not difficult. The two men belonged to the College staff of

body-snatchers; they had succeeded so far in their enterprise, and would

with their burden have avoided all houses, if one of them had not been

taken ill, and the other had not also wanted to participate in a

restorative after their night's work. It is supposed that, thinking

themselves secure in the quiet house, they had taken the body out of the

sack for some purpose only known to themselves, and thinking, when the

noise got up, that the pursuit was after them, they had flung it into the

close bed and flown.

Once upon a track of such grim romance, so rich in specimens of a bypast

phase of society, it is not easy to get rid of it, nor is it any more

wrong to pursue it so far, to shew our social ameliorations, than it is to

search for underlying strata in the physical world, which tell us of a

rudeness in Nature's workings from which she progresses to more perfect

organisms. Another of these stories is scarcely less interesting. A young

student of the name of Burns saw one day on the big centre-table of the

College practical hall what he considered to be the body of his mother.

Rendered wild by the conviction, he flew out of the room, took a ticket

for Dumfries, and, on arriving there, told his father (who, half-dead in

grief, was confined to bed,) his terrible story. It was night, and the

snow had been falling during the day, so that the graveyard was covered

nearly a foot in depth, and one might have thought that the father would

have put off the execution of a resolution, to which he came on the

instant, of examining the grave, till the following day; but without

saying a word, he rose deliberately, as if some new energy had seized him

and restored him to the active duties of life, and betaking himself,

accompanied by his son, to the place of sepulture, roused the sexton to

the work of investigation. The lantern and the spade were put in

requisition, and with the father and son as mute spectators, the green sod

was removed and the mould shovelled out till the coffin was laid bare.

Then the lid was unscrewed and taken off, and there lay, exposed to the

eyes of the husband and the son, the body of the endeared one--the centre

once of so many loves, and the source of so many domestic joys--calm in

the stillness of death.

We have even a little poetry in some of these almost innumerable stories

of a state of social polity that will never return again. One was a

favourite of the students about 1818. One, George Duncan, from Angus,

lodged in the Potterow with another of the name of Ferguson from a shire

further north. They were both in love with a Miss Wilson, who resided

somewhere about Bruntsfield Links; and so embittered were they by this

feeling of rivalship, that they slept together, and ate their meals

together, and walked and talked together, without ever the name of the

girl being mentioned by either. There seemed to be a tacit admission that

each knew that the other was in love with the same individual, and that

each supposed the other the favourite, and that each hated the other with

all the virulence of an unsuccessful competitor. In this strange state of

things between two who had once been loving friends, Ferguson died of a

disease the nature of which baffled the acuteness of the best surgeons,

and in the course of a few days Duncan's rival was consigned to a grave in

the Buccleuch burying-ground. And now comes a far more singular part of

the story. Duncan, in league with a noted snatcher at that time, called

the "Screw," from the adroit way in which he managed the extracting

instrument, repaired, on the second night after the funeral, to the

cemetery where poor Ferguson had been deposited, with a view to lifting

the body and carrying it to Dr Monro's room. It was late, and the moon

shed more abundantly than the adventurers wished her soft light over the

still graves, and especially that of him whose nineteenth summer sun had

shown in a succession, with small interval, the smile of beauty and the

grin of death. But if this poetry of nature did not affect the rival and

the anatomist, something else did; for as the two slouched behind one of

the grave-stones to conceal themselves till the glare of the moon should

be hidden in a welcome cloud, who should be seen there, wrapped in a

night-cloak, and hanging over the grave of Ferguson, but the object of

their mutual affection? Nay, so near were they, that they heard her sobs

and her ejaculations of "Henry, dear Henry," and many others of those soft

endearments with which the heart of grief is so eloquent. If the iron had

entered into Duncan's soul before, it now burned there in the red fire of

his hatred. The sobbing figure rose and vanished, as do the night-visions

of these places, so suggestive of flitting images, and within an hour the

body of Ferguson was extended on the table within the College. Nor does

the story end with this terrible satisfaction, for Duncan more than once

afterwards, in the moonlit nights, witnessed from the same hiding-place,

and with what satisfaction to his relentless soul may be guessed, the same

offerings of the poor girl's affection over an empty grave.

And so forth, through all the number of such stories as used to be rife at

that time, but have now died away amidst narratives of a more living

interest. But towards the close of Barclay's labours, in his class the

materials for such were rather on the increase, for the reason that the

invasions on consecrated places kept a proportion to the requirements of

an increasing class of students. Nor, when Barclay ceased to lecture, and

was succeeded by Knox, did this Scotch shame undergo any diminution, if it

did not wax more brazen in its features. Knox was destined, as well by his

powers as a public lecturer as by his ambition and vindictive impatience

of an intruder on his peculiar walk, and independently altogether of the

dark suspicions which rose like thick exhalations out of the depths of the

great tragedy subsequently enacted, to become a marked man, and the centre

of attraction to ardent students. His ambition felt, too, the quickening

spur of Liston, who, as an extra-academical lecturer on surgery, offered

for even more than a national reputation. The professional emulation of

these men soon degenerated into professional, if not personal hatred,

scarcely alleviated by the collateral envy they both bore towards the

academical professor, who, himself a good anatomist of the old school,

with family honours not distinguished from a professional inheritance,

could afford to view the new men with an easy if not proud disregard.

With these feelings among the lecturers, we may easily fancy the almost

natural effects among the students, always remarkable for devotion to

their teachers. The spirit of the latter went through them like an

inoculation, and, while working in them as a rancour, it took the form,

as in the elders, of a professional emulation. Nay, it seemed to become

almost a frenzy among them, that those of one class should excel those of

another in the knowledge of the human body. Questions came to be discussed

among them, often suggested by faults imputed by one lecturer to another,

and the quarrels of the masters thus became bones of contention among

their scholars. An unsuccessful operation would be seized on as a pretext

to run down the operator; and as the anatomical books could not always, or

often, settle the dispute, the area of controversy would be in the halls

of dissection. In this state of affairs, it behoved that the demand for

subjects, which ever since the advent of Barclay had been on the increase,

should become day by day more clamant, and the number of vagabonds who

betook themselves to the calling came soon to take on the form and

organisation of a regular staff.

Unfortunately the characters of the leaders, with the exception of Monro,

were not calculated to temper this zeal with discretion, or throw a veil

of decency over the transactions of low men, which, however justified, as

many said, by the necessities of science, were hostile to the instincts of

nature, and fearfully resented by the feelings of relatives. Liston was

accused, whether justly or not, of wiling patients from the Infirmary, to

set off by his brilliant operations the imperfections of the regular

surgeons of that institution; and great as he was in his profession, it is

certain that he wanted that simplicity and dignity of character necessary

to secure to him respect in proportion to the admiration due to his

powers. But Knox was a man of a far more complex organisation, if it was

indeed possible to analyse him. A despair to the physiognomist who

contemplated his rough irregular countenance, with a blind eye resembling

a grape, he was not less a difficulty to the psychologist. There seemed to

be no principle whereby you could think of binding him down to a line of

duty, and a universal sneer, not limited to mundane powers, formed the

contrast to an imputed self-perfection, not without the evidence of very

great scientific accomplishments. Even before he took up Barclay's class

he was damaged by a story which went the round of the public, and was

brought up against him at the time of his great occultation.

On returning from the Cape, where he had been attached as surgeon to a

regiment, he was one day met by his old teacher, Professor Jameson, who,

after a kindly recognition in his own simple way, inquired what had been

his pursuits when abroad.

"Why," replied Knox, with one of these expressions of an almost unreadable

face--something between a leer and overdone sincerity--"why, I was busy in

your way,--keen in the study of natural history. No place in the world

excels the Cape for curious objects in that department; will you believe

it, Professor, I have made an extraordinary discovery?"

"Discovery! ah, you interest me."

"And well I may," he continued, as the light of the one orb expressed the

new-born zeal of the naturalist. "I have found a new species of animal.

Yes, sir, altogether new, and at a world's-wide distance from any

congeners with which you are acquainted--quite an irreproducible phoenix."

"Then we must identify it with your name,--some adjective connected with

night, but not darkness."

"And that I have done, too," continued the naturalist.

"Why, then, the description will form an excellent article for our

journal. I could wish that you write it out and send it to me. It will be

something grand, to shew the Southerners we are _en avant_."

"I will do it," was the reply; "and you shall have it for the next

number."

Nor was Knox worse in this instance than his word, if he could be, for by

and by there came to the Professor a spirited, if not elaborate

description of the new species, which, having been approved of by the

simple Professor, flared brilliantly among the heavy articles of his

beloved work. But unhappily for the discoverer, no less than for the

editor, the article fell under the eye of Dr Buckland, who soon found out

the whole affair to be an excellent hoax. Often afterwards Jameson looked

for his contributor to administer a reproof in his gentle way, but this

opportunity never awaited him, for Knox, though with one eye, had a long

sight when there was danger ahead, and the Professor in the distance sent

him down the nearest close with even more than his usual celerity.

Those who knew the man would have no hesitation in placing such an example

of his recklessness to the credit of his rampant egotism,[2] certainly not

to that of practical joking, a species of devil's humour not always

dissociated from a _bonhommie_ to which the earnest mind of the man was a

stranger. Even the bitterness of soul towards competitors was not

sufficiently gratified by the pouring forth of the toffana-spirit of his

sarcasm. He behoved to hold the phial with refined fingers, and rub the

liquid into the "raw" with the soft touch of love. The affected

attenuation of voice and forced _retinu_ of feeling, sometimes

degenerating into a puppy's simper, bore such a contrast to the acerbity

of the matter, that the effect, though often ludicrous, was increased

tenfold. We may now read such a passage as we subjoin,[3] serving merely

as a solitary example of the style; but it would be vain to try to

estimate the effect from the mere allocation of vocables disjoined from

the acrimony they collected in their passage through the ear and carried

to the brain.

The Young Amateurs

It would seem that conspiring circumstances at the time pointed to that

kind of denouement which is the issue of an evil too great for society to

bear. In Barclay's time, the increased demand for the physical material of

the dissecting halls was supplied by a most convenient arrangement of

places. There was the Infirmary a little to the west, where deaths were

occurring several times a week, and many bodies left unclaimed by their

friends. Then, at the back of Barclay's hall was a little "death's

mailing" set apart for those who had been relieved of life in that refuge

of the wretched, and, strangely enough, the windows looked out upon the

tempting field; so that a man or woman, dreaming of no such fate, might

die and be buried, and taken and dissected, all within the temporal space

of a few days, and the physical of a few yards. No great wonder that there

was there a rope-ladder of ominous intention, and a box with such

accommodating appurtenances as would permit of the insertion of hooks at

the end of lines, whereby it might be let down empty and light, and

brought up full and heavy. Nor was it inappropriate that young Cullen, the

grandson of _Celeberrimus_, should be the man who accomplished with

greatest spirit these easy appropriations. Some will yet recollect how

these young gouls grinned with a satanic pleasure, as they saw the

heavy-looking sextons busy with the work which they were so soon to undo,

if it was not also more than surmise that these grave men could smile in

return, even while they were beating down the green sod, as if it were to

remain till the greater resurrection, in place of the smaller.

As connected with the continued spoliation of this unfortunate little

Golgotha, a story was current out of which was formed a mock heroic

imitation of the 17th book of the "Iliad." It seemed that an old beggar of

the name of Sandy M'Nab, who used to be known in Edinburgh as a cripple

ballad singer, had died of almost pure old age in the Infirmary, and was,

in due time, consigned to that rest of which, as a peripatetic minstrel,

he had enjoyed so small a portion in this world. Yet how little one knows

of the fate to which he may be destined! Who could have supposed that

Sandy M'Nab, about whom nobody cared more than to give him an occasional

penny, and who was left to die in an hospital, would become as famous,

within a limited space, as Patroclus. It seemed that Cullen and some

others had, according to their custom, appropriated the body of the

minstrel, so far as to have it safely deposited in the box, and that box

carefully placed below the window waiting for the application of the rope,

whereby it was to be drawn to the upper regions; but in the meantime, some

three or four of Monro's Trojans, jealous of the Greeks, had got over the

wall with the same intention that had fired their opponents. Though the

night was dark, with only an occasional glimpse of a shy moon, who got

herself veiled every now and then, as if ashamed of those deeds of man

enacted under her light, the collegians soon ascertained that their envied

minstrel had been exhumed, yea, that that body, which once contained a

spirit all but cosmopolitan, was cribbed and confined in Cullen's

insatiable box. The discovery inflamed an original intention of mere

body-snatching into an emprise of stratagetic war against their

professional foes; and straightway they commenced to remove the box to the

other side of the yard, with a view to getting it hoisted over the wall.

But the work had scarcely commenced, when the watchful enemy, who, in

fact, all the time were busily undoing the rope in the hall above,

observed the stratagem below; and issuing forth, some three or four of

them, under the influence of something more like chivalry than the

stealing of bodies, they commenced an attack upon the intruders, which was

met by a stout resistance. The box had been removed to nearly the middle

of the yard, and round the sacred centre where lay the dead Patroclus,

the battle raged with a fierceness not unworthy of the old and immortal

conflict. At one time Sandy was in possession of the Barclayens, at

another in that of the Monroites; so that the old quotation, which was

subsequently incorporated in heroics, was perhaps never, in all time, so

applicable,--"_Danai Trojanique cadaver manus commiserunt_." Taken and

retaken, and guarded with menaces, the inner contest was, meanwhile,

illustrated by hand-to-hand fights over the swelling tumuli, perhaps not

less glorious in their small way than many which have involved the fate of

a kingdom; and yet the object of the conflict was the body of a wandering

beggar. Nor is it known how long this affray might have lasted, if some

people in the neighbourhood, having heard the uproar, had not threatened,

by getting to the top of the wall, to bring the champions before the

authorities. The Monroites fled, and the object of all this contention was

left in the hands of those who, by possession, had at least the prior

right. The box was hoisted to the rooms amidst the acclamations of the

conquerors. "_Sic hi alacres cadaver extulerunt e bello._"

The want of this fruitful field behoved afterwards, on the advent of Knox,

to be supplied by increased exactions over the country; and hence came a

more perfect organisation of a staff, composed of men who, without the

excuse of a stimulus for science, were attracted to the work by the bribe

of high payments. We have already seen to what extent that bribe reached;

and whatever otherwise may be thought of those grim minions of the moon,

they had more to stir the low passions of human nature than those older

minions on the borders, who, for the sake of living steers, often made

dead bodies. Science became the Nemesis of the dearest and most sacred

affections; and what may appear strange enough, the students themselves

engaged in the work with a feeling, as we have hinted, approaching to

chivalry. They were sworn knights of the fair damsel Science, though the

rites were those of Melpomene, with the grotesque shapes of those of

Thalia. The midnight enterprises had charms for them, but they were death

to those feelings of a Christian people, which require to be viewed as a

natural and necessary part of a social fabric, to be tampered with only to

the ruin of virtue. Among these knights at an earlier period stood Robert

Liston, whose hardihood and coolness in such midnight adventures could

only be equalled by his subsequent surgical handlings; and like all other

vigorous and enthusiastic men, he had the power of enlisting associates,

warmed by the fire he himself felt.

A favourite theatre for these dark deeds was the banks of the Forth, along

which are to be seen many of those small unprotected graveyards which,

attached to villages, are as the shadow of the life that is within them.

Yes, grave or merry as the hamlet may be, that shadow is never

awanting--often within the sound of the marriage-dance, and refusing to be

illumined by the light of man's earthly happiness. Sometimes in poetics

called the gnome that points to eternity, no man can but for a few brief

moments of seducing joy keep his eye from the contemplation of it; and,

whether he can or not, he must be content to lie within its dark outline.

These are common thoughts, which are sometimes condemned as a species of

moralising; yet surprise will not the less pass even into vertigo when we

think of individuals of the same species reversing rites which even lower

instincts shudder to touch. We are always looking for seriousness in

nature, and it is long till we are forced to confess that she is

continually mocking us.

"_Usque adeo, res humanas vis abdita quædam

Obterit et pulchros fasceis sævasque secureis

Proculcare ac_ LUDIBRIO SIBI HABERE _videtur_."

On one occasion our anatomist, having got a companion up to the point of

courage, resolved to pay a night-visit to one of these outlying places,

where, from information he had gained, there had been deposited an object

which had a charm to him other than that of the mere "thing." The man had

died of a disease which the country practitioner had reported to Liston as

something which had stimulated his curiosity, but which he could not be

permitted by the friends to inquire into in the manner so much desired by

doctors. The two knights got themselves arrayed as sailors--with the

jacket, the sou'-wester, the unbraced trousers, striped shirt, and all the

rest--and getting on board a pinnace, made their way to Cures. They had on

arrival some time to pass before the coming of the eery hour when such

work as they had on hand could be performed with the least chance of

interruption. The night, as the principal performer described it, was as

dark as the narrow house whereof they were to deprive the still

inhabitant, so that even with the assistance of the doctor's apprentice,

who went along with them, they had the greatest difficulty to discover the

limited spot of their operations. But Liston had encountered such

difficulties before, and then "what mattered if they should take the wrong

one?" for with the exception of the pathological curiosity, as in this

case, these children of science had no more scruples of choice. In a trice

the game was bagged, as they sometimes described the work, and the boy,

getting alarmed, flew off with the necessary injunction of secrecy, which

only added to his alarm, as they could plainly perceive by the sounds of

his rapid receding steps heard in the stillness of the haunted spot.

But the work there was generally the least difficult of such enterprises,

for as yet the people had not throughout the rural districts been roused

to the necessity of the night-watch, which afterwards became so common.

The danger lay in the conveyance, which in this, as in most other

instances, was by the means of a pair of strong shoulders. The burden was

accordingly hoisted on Liston's broad back, and the two, stumbling over

the green _tumuli_, got to the skirts, and away as far as they could from

habitations. The field side of a thick hedge was the selected place of

deposit until the morning gave them light for achieving the further

migrations of the unconscious charge; and then there was to be sought out

a place of rest for the two tars, wearied with travelling all day

homewards in the north after so long a cruise in the South Sea. Nor was it

long before a welcome light proclaimed to Liston, who knew the country,

the small wayside inn, in which they would repose during the night. And

there, to be sure, they got that easy entrance, if not jolly welcome, so

often accorded to this good-hearted set of men. They were soon in harmony

with the household, and especially with a "Mary the maid of the inn," who

saw peculiar charms in seamen in general, and in our friend Robert in

particular; nor was the admiration all on one side, though Mary's

predilection for his kind was, as matters turned out, to be anything but

auspicious to the concealed students. Then the coquetting was helped by a

little warm drink, if not a song from the companion about a certain "sheer

hulk," which lay somewhere else than behind the hedge.

All this, be it observed, had taken place by the kitchen fire--an

appropriate place for benighted seamen; and it being now considerably

beyond twelve, they were about to be shewn their room, when they were

suddenly roused by a loud shout outside, the words, "Ship, ahoy!" being

more distinctly heard by our _quasi_ tars than they perhaps relished, for,

after all, neither of our students, however they might impose upon Mary,

felt very comfortable under the apprehension of being scanned by a true

son of Neptune.

"That's my brother Bill," said the girl, as she ran to open the door; "I

fear he has been drinking."

The door being opened, the "Ship, ahoy" entered; and what was the horror

of Liston and his friend when they saw a round, good-humoured sailor

staggering under the weight of that identical bag and its contents which

they had placed behind the hedge only a very short time before!

"There," cried the blustering lad, who had clearly enough been drinking,

as he threw the heavy load on the kitchen-floor with the something between

a squash and thump which might have been expected from the nature of the

contents--"there, and if it aint something good, rot them chaps there who

stole it."

"What is it?" said Mary.

"And why should I know? Ask them. Didn't they put the hulk behind a hedge

when I was lying there trying to wear about upon t'other tack? What ho!"

he continued, "where did you heave from? But first let's see what's the

cargo."

And before the petrified students could bring up a sufficient energy to

interfere, Bill's knife had severed the thick cord which bound the neck of

the bag. Then mumbling to himself, "What under the hatches?" he exposed,

by rolling down the mouth of the bag, the gray head of a man.

The tar's speech was choked in a moment, and while the girl uttered a loud

scream, and rushed out into the darkness, there stood the brave seaman,

whose courage was equal to an indifference in a hurricane of wind or war,

with his mouth open, and his eyes fixed in his head, and his arms extended

as if waiting for the swing of a rope; all which culminated in a shout of

terror as he ran after his sister, and left the field to those who could

not by their own arts or exertions have got the command of it. So true is

it that man's extremity is also not only God's opportunity, but sometimes

his own, though against His will and His laws. Not a moment was to be

lost. Without binding again the bag, the burden was again upon the back of

the now resolute Liston, and without having time to pay for their warm

drink, or to remember Mary for her smiles, the adventurers were off on

their way to the beach.

Of all the unfortunate places on the banks of the estuary resorted to for

these midnight prowlings, no one was more remarkable than that romantic

little death's croft, Rosyth, near to Limekilns. Close upon the seashore,

from which it is divided by a rough dike, and with one or two

melancholy-enough-looking trees at the back, it forms a prominent object

of interest to the pleasure parties in the Forth; nor is it possible for

even a very practical person to visit it, when the waves are dashing and

brattling against the shore, to be unimpressed with the solitude and the

stillness of the inhabitants, amidst the ceaseless sounds of what he might

term nature's threnody sung over the achievements of the grim king. Often

resorted to by strangers who love, because they require the stimulus of

the poetry of external things, the more, perhaps, because they want the

true well-spring of humanity within the heart, it is a favourite resort of

the inhabitants of the village, where bereaved ones, chiefly lovers of

course, sit and beguile their griefs by listening to these sounds, which

they can easily fancy have been heard for so many generations, even by

those who lie there, and who have themselves acted the same part. The few

old gray head-stones, occasionally dashed by the surf, have their story,

which is connected through centuries with the names of the villagers; and

such melancholy musers find themselves more easily associated with a line

of humble ancestors than can occur in the pedigrees of populous towns.

Surely it is impossible that these holy feelings can have a final cause so

indifferent to Him who, out of man's heart, however hardened, "brings the

issues of love," that it can be overlooked, defeated, and mocked by that

pride of science of which man makes an idol. The _ludibrium_ referred to

by Lucretius is in this instance, at least, of man's making; and if it is

conceded to be necessary that the bodily system should be known, that

necessity, which is so far of man's thought, must be restricted by that

other necessity, which is altogether of God's.

It was not to be supposed that this romantic mailing should escape the

observation of our anatomist. Nor did it; and we are specially reminded of

the fact by an admission made by Liston himself, that, unpoetical and

rough as he was, an incident once occurred here which touched him more

than any operation he ever performed. On this occasion he and his friends

had made use of a boat specially hired for the purpose--a mode of

conveyance which subsequently passed into a custom, before the Limekilns

people were roused from their apathy, and became next to frantic under

circumstances which left it in doubt whether any one of them, husband,

wife, father, mother, or lover, could say that their relations had not

been stolen away from their cherished Rosyth. The adventurers studied

their time so well that their boat would get alongside of the dike under

the shade of night, and they could wile away an hour or two while they

watched the opportunity of a descent. They were favoured by that

inspissated moonlight, which was enough for their keen eyes, and not less

keen hands, and yet might suffice to enable them to escape observation.

But just as they were about to land they observed the figure of a young

woman sitting near one of the head-stones. The stillness all about enabled

them to hear deep sobs, as if the heart had been convulsed, and tried by

these efforts to throw off the weight of a deep grief. The story was

readable enough even by gouls, but so intent were they on their prey that

they felt no response to these offerings of the stricken heart to Him who,

for His own purposes, had struck it. The scene continued beyond the

endurance of their patience, and science, as usual, murmured against

Nature's decrees; but at length she who was thought an intruder rose, and

after some movement of the arms, which came afterwards to be understood,

slowly left the spot.