more darker shades to the picture. We have no great wish to lay them on
either thick or thin--the mind will paint for itself, as rises the
contemplation: the family doctor hanging over his patient with
professional sympathy, and perhaps something finer, dreaming the while of
a _post-obit_ fee, in addition to that paid for his skill to cure--the
sexton clapping down the sod over a companion who had often set the table
in a roar, in which the grave official had joined, and meditating a
resurrection through his means in the morning--the relative who had even
got the length of tears, dropping them on the pale face of an old friend,
all the while that he meditated a sale of the body. But it is true that
the annals of the period justified all these grim pictures. Many will
still recollect the young Irish doctor who went in the Square under the
name of the "Captain"--a man of such infinite spirits, always in a flow of
his country's humour, that you could not suppose that there was time or
room in his mind for a little smooth pool to reflect a passing cloud of
sadness. In his native town he drove a great trade for the Edinburgh
halls--his largest contribution being laid on the graveyard of his native
town. And surely, in his case, we would have thought the Chinese system of
paying a doctor, only in the case of recovery, would have been an example
of Irish prudence. Nay, so many were the barrels, with a peculiar species
of _contenu_, he sent by Leith, that it was difficult to avoid the
suspicion that the rollicking son of Erin had a faith in his medicines
stronger than the hope which illumined the faces of his patients. These
barrels of the "Captain" were quite well known, not only to the skippers,
but the porters about the pier, ay, even the carters who made the final
transport; and here, again, mammon was the seducing spirit. It was only
when he came over for his large accumulated payments that he was seen in
the hall, where his jokes and immeasurable laughter might have made those
quiet heads on the tables rise to get a look of their once sympathising
surgeon. Nor, in the consideration of the students, was his laughter
unjustified by his jokes; as once where, pointing to a certain table, he
apostrophised the burden it carried--"Ah, Misthress O'Neil! did I spare
the whisky on you, which you loved so well,--and didn't you lave me a
purty little sum to keep the resurrectionists away from you,--and didn't I
take care of you myself? and by J----s you are there, and don't thank me
for coming over to see you;" or when, in the same brogue, he told them
that, not long before his coming over, he had, for lack of "the thing" in
his own town, taken a car and rode to a neighbouring village, where he
got precisely what he wanted; that, on returning at a rapid rate with his
charge, he met the mother of it with the words in her mouth--
"Well, docther, is it all right wid the grave ov poor Pat?"
"All right, misthress. Didn't I tell you afore there were no
resurrectionists in that quarter?"
"And you are sure you eximined it complately?"
"No doubt in the wide earth."
"Then I may go back, and you'll give me a ride?"
"Surely, and plaisant," said he; "just get up."
"And," continued the Captain to the delighted students, "I dhrove the good
lady home agin without breaking a bone of her body, and Pat never said a
word."
"But," he went on, "if I were to tell you all my Irish work, I would never
get back to my ould country agin."
"Just another adventure, Captain."
"Well, then, didn't a purty young girl--and I have hopes of her yet for
myself, for she has money galore--come to me one day in a mighty fit of
grief?"
"'My poor mother has been rizzt,' said she, as she burst out in the way of
these gentle craturs.
"'And she has not,' said I--(the more by token that I had the ould lady in
the house.)
"'I have been at the grave,' said she, 'and I see it has been disturbed.'
"'And it has not,' said I; 'for wasn't I there this morning before ever a
soul in all the town was stirring? and didn't I leave it all right with my
ould friend?'
"'But I have seen marks,' said she again; for she was so determined.
"'And do you think I don't know you have?' said I; 'and didn't I see them,
after I got a spade from the sexton and put on a nate sod or two more to
make the grave dacent and respectable?'
"'Oh, I'm so glad,' replied she, all of a content.
"'And you'll be gladder yet, my darling,' said I, as I gave her a kiss.
'Go home and contint yourself, and perhaps, when your mournings are off,
you may consent to make a poor docther happy.'
"And so she went away, blushing as no one ever saw except in a raal rose."
And the laugh again sounded through the hall among the dead.
Whether these stories were true, or merely got up by the extravagant love
of fun in the Captain, it would not be easy to say; but certain it is,
that their being told and responded to in the manner thus described, from
the lips of an ear-witness, shews us the atmosphere of moral feeling that
then obtained in places proudly designated as being dedicated to the
interests of humanity, and from which, too, we could draw the conclusion
that what was gained in the amelioration of physical disease was required
to be debited so largely with the deterioration of morals and a
wide-spread infliction of pain. But even darker deeds were done in
Scotland than those for which the Captain took so gasconading a credit.
From a certain village called S----e, the myrmidons of the Square, and
particularly the "Spune," got more material for the Hall than could have
been expected without a resident sympathiser and participator in the
profits. That zealous correspondent was not the sexton--no, nor the
minister; but he was the minister's brother, and, so far as we can learn,
a member of the profession. Need it be remarked how convenient the
relation between the messenger of heaven and the benefactor of earth--the
physician of souls and the curer of bodies--the man of prayers and the man
of pills--the distributor of the great catholicon and the dispenser of the
small! We can fancy the godly man, we believe all unconscious of the
intentions of his brother, pouring the holy unction of his prayers over
the struggling spirit of the dying Christian, and the doctor counting the
pulses as they died away into that stillness which was to be the prelude
to the payment--five pounds--for the deserted temple. One recording angel
would fly to heaven with a name to be inscribed in the roll of eternal
salvation, and the other to Edinburgh to announce that another body was to
be inserted in the black list of Surgeon's Square.
Even this was not the culmination of the evil. The head of the
scorpion--society--was to swallow its tail, so that the virtue and the
poison would meet and traverse together the circle. Mammon, through the
medium of the leaders of the purveyors of science, extended his charm to
the hearts of relations and friends, changing the soft glance of love and
pity into the fiery glare of sordid rapacity. Throughout the High Street
and Canongate, and down through the squalid wynds and closes, where,
though crime and misery shake hands over the bottle of whisky, the
death-bed still retains some claims over the affections, and where
religion is sometimes able to extort from the demons of passion the
unwilling tribute of compunction, these strange men prowled in the hope of
finding or making a monster. And in this it is certain that they succeeded
more often than was then suspected, or is even yet known. Their first
inquiry was for death-beds, and the next for evidence of squalid poverty
combined with vice. The subject was approached cautiously where the ground
had all the appearance of being dangerous. If they were met by
deliberation or hesitation, between which and blows there was no space,
their object was secured, as the devil's is, by exposing to the haggard
eye of penury the very form and substance of the bribe. In one case,
reported by Merrylees himself, the bargain was struck in a whisper by the
bed-side of the dying friend. How far the relationship extended in any of
these cases we never could ascertain; and it is only fair to assume, for
the sake of human nature, that in the majority of instances the success
was only over the keepers of stray lodgers, and mere friends, as
distinguished from relatives; but that there were, some where there
behoved to be the yearnings of affection, and a consequent struggle
between love and mammon, there can be no doubt.
Thus, however difficult or delicate the moral impediments that required to
be overcome, the physical parts of the contract were of easy management.
The coffining was made a little ceremony, performed in presence of some of
the neighbours. There would be tears, no doubt, if not an Irish howl, and
the louder perhaps the greater the bribe; and in the evening a bag of
tanners' bark supplied the place of the friend of the many virtues
discoursed of at the wake. Nor was there less care taken in carrying this
box of bark to the Canongate burying-ground than was displayed by
"Merry-Andrew" in conveying the _surrogatum_ to Surgeon's Square; but, of
course, there would be a difference in the speed of the respective
bearers. Taking all these details into account, we can scarcely deny that
these men wrought harder for their money than if they had pursued a
regular calling. But, then, they liked it. Even after the bargain for the
living invalid was struck, how many anxious watchings at a wynd-end were
to exhaust the weary hours before the spirit took wing from the sold body!
The gaunt figure of Merrylees, as he jerked his lank muscles and threw
his face into the old contortions, might be seen there, but none would
know what this meant.
One night, a student who saw him standing at a close-end, and suspected
that his friend was watching his prey, whispered in his ear, "She's dead,"
and, aided by the darkness, escaped. In a moment after, "Merry-Andrew"
shot down the wynd, and, opening the door, pushed his lugubrious face into
a house.
"It's a' owre I hear," said he, in a loud whisper; "and when will we come
for the body?"
"Whisht, ye mongrel," replied the old harridan who acted as nurse; "she's
as lively as a cricket."
A statement which, though whispered in the unction of secresy, and with
most evident sincerity, Merrylees doubted, under a suspicion that the
woman's conscience had come between her and the love of money; and,
jerking himself forward to the bed, he threw the shadow of his revolting
countenance over the face of the terrified invalid, enough of itself to
have sent the hovering spirit to its destination, whether above or below.
Not a word was spoken by the victim. She had heard enough to rouse terror
sufficient to deprive her of speech, if not of breath; and all that the
ogre witnessed was the pair of eyes lighted up with the parting rays of
the fluttering spirit, and peering mysteriously as if into his very soul.
But then, as it happened, "Merry-Andrew" had only a body, and this look,
more like as it was to a phosphoric gleam than the light of the living
spirit, fell blank. Enough for him that she was not yet dead; and, taking
one of his springing steps, he was out of the room, forcing his way up the
wynd, to seek, and, if possible, to wreak a most imprudent vengeance on
the larking prig who had put his long muscles to such unfruitful exercise.
Meanwhile, the young rogue had waited for the butt, to see some more of
his picturesque spasms; nor was he disappointed, for the moment Merrylees
cast his eye on him, he tossed up his hands, and, with a shout which might
have been taken by one who did not know him, or even by one who did, as an
indication either of intense fun or fiery anger, made after him at the
rate of his long strides. The student, of course, escaped, and Merrylees,
convinced that the invalid was not so near her end as he wished, went
growling home to bed.
But this tragedy, with its ephialtic forms reflecting these coruscations
of grim comedy, did not end here. The old invalid, no doubt hastened by
what she had witnessed, died on the following night; and on that after the
next succeeding, when he had reason to expect that she would be
conveniently placed in that white fir receptacle that has a shape so
peculiarly its own, and not deemed by him so artistic as that of a bag or
a box, Merrylees, accompanied by the "Spune," entered the dead room with
the sackful of bark. To their astonishment, and what Merrylees even called
disgusting to an honourable mind, the old wretch had scruples.
"A light has come doon upon me frae heaven," she said, "and I canna."
"Light frae heaven!" said Merrylees indignantly. "Will that shew the
doctors how to cut a cancer out o' ye, ye auld fule? But we'll sune put
out that light," he whispered to his companion. "Awa' and bring in a
half-mutchkin."
"Ay," replied the "Spune," as he got hold of a bottle, "we are only
obeying the will o' God. 'Man's infirmities shall verily be cured by the
light o' His wisdom.' I forget the text."
And the "Spune," proud of his biblical learning, went upon his mission. He
was back in a few minutes; for where in Scotland is whisky not easily got?
Then Merrylees, (as he used to tell the story to some of the students, to
which we cannot be expected to be strictly true as regards every act or
word,) filling out a glass, handed it to the wavering witch.
"Tak' ye that," he said, "and it will drive the deevil out o' ye."
And finding that she easily complied, he filled out another, which went in
the same direction with no less relish.
"And noo," said he, as he saw her scruples melting in the liquid fire,
and took out a pound-note, which he held between her face and the candle,
"look through that, ye auld deevil, and ye'll see some o' the real light
o' heaven that will mak' your cats' een reel."
"But that's only ane," said the now-wavering merchant, "and ye ken ye
promised three."
"And here they are," replied he, as he held before her the money to the
amount of which she had only had an experience in her dreams, and which
reduced her staggering reason to a vestige.
"Weel," she at length said, "ye may tak' her."
And all things thus bade fair for the completion of the barter, when the
men, and scarcely less the woman, were startled by a knock at the door,
which having been opened, to the dismay of the purchasers there entered a
person, dressed in a loose great-coat, with a broad bonnet on his head,
and a thick cravat round his throat, so broad as to conceal a part of his
face.
"Mrs Wilson is dead?" said the stranger, as he approached the bed.
"Ay," replied the woman, from whom even the whisky could not keep off an
ague of fear.
"I am her nephew," continued the stranger, "and I am come to pay the last
duties of affection to one who was kind to me when I was a boy. Can I see
her?"
"Ay," said the woman; "she's no screwed doon yet."
Enough for "Merry-Andrew" and the "Spune." They were off, and up the wynd
in a moment, followed by the stranger, who, for some reason that has not
in the story yet appeared, gave them chase, only so much as to terrify
them into a flight, but without being carried so far as to insure a
seizure, which he did not seem inclined to achieve. Nor did he return to
bury Mrs Wilson--a strange mystery to the unnatural nurse, who, however,
did not lose all, for the three pounds had been left on the table, and
were quickly appropriated without the least consideration.
The story next day went the round of the hall; and it was not until the
woman was buried, that Merrylees and his friend were made aware that the
same student who had played the principal performer at the head of the
wynd was the stranger in a very well-assorted disguise.
Preying on each other
We are surprised when we find a man turn wicked all of a sudden, and
seldom think that we are simply drawing a false conclusion, insomuch as
the suddenness of the supposed change is a mere jump of development,--the
consequence of a long train, dating perhaps from infancy. So true is it,
that the increase of depravity is the progression of degrees, all
according to that law of nature whereby God wills to act by the regular
process of cause and effect, each change helping another, till matters
come to a burst, when the often-split powers take new directions, to begin
in new courses, and go on increasing as before. We have already seen the
demon mammon obeying the law of increased power, spreading from a centre
in Surgeon's Square among the people, and trying heart after heart, even
to that core where he battled successfully with affections which God seems
to have consecrated to Himself. Yes; and the demon was to go farther and
farther,--even beyond the stage where we are sure to find him,--contesting
even the breasts of the regular traders, the very centres of their
natural affinities.
We have already noticed the use to which "Merry-Andrew" put that
brown-black suit of his, the white neckcloth, the haggard cheeks, and the
tears,--all so often the stage property in the melodrama of life, and as
easily put off as the personation of the character, unless kept on by the
adhesive effect of a good legacy. But as every man is once or twice in his
life doomed to experience in reality that which he falsifies in theory, so
our mourner over those he had never seen before was on one occasion, at
least, placed in a position where it might have been expected he would
experience something like a qualm about the thing which was in form, if
not in consistency, a heart. It seems that Merrylees had a sister in
Penicuik, with whom he had been brought up, and towards whom, before he
had experienced the hardening process of mammon's manipulations, he had
entertained something like affection. That sister happened to die; and, on
a certain day, Merrylees appeared in the Square once more in the old suit
which had so faithfully repaid its original cost twenty times over. He had
sense enough--and the reason thereof may appear, on a little consideration
of the character of his compeers--to keep the circumstance of the death to
himself; and, accordingly, when the apparition appeared in the ominous
suit, they anticipated another descent of grief upon the Infirmary.
This suspicion very soon passed away, for not only was there no sign of
that puckering up of the lank muscles, not deserving the name of a look of
vivacity, which preceded his lugubrious personation in the hospital, but
the day passed without any aid being asked from the others to help to
carry, or rather run, with the white coffin. The methodist "Spune" was the
first to divine the real cause of the chief's melancholy; and whether it
was, as was said,--for we are not certain of the fact,--that the two had
had a quarrel some time before about the division of spoil, it was certain
that the worsted competitor began to entertain some very dark thoughts
about a visit to Penicuik church-yard, whereby he could not only
remunerate himself in the shape of money, but achieve one of the most
curious revenges that ever were enjoyed since Nemesis began to have her
fiery eyes. So, taking Mowat to a side of the Square, the "Spune" began to
look mysteriously into his face--a most unnecessary process, where there
never was any change of expression since first nature squeezed the clay
into solidity.
"I suspect Merrylees' sister's dead at last," said he; "isn't she as good
as another?"
"Nae difference," was the answer, without any surprise.
"Yes, ye fule, some; and you're so stupid you don't see it."
"I can see nane,--a' is alike to me; ae worm's as gude's anither to the
'Moudiewart.'"
"Ay, but if a worm had bitten ye, man, wouldn't you squeeze it the
harder?"
"Maybe."
"And have you forgotten the ten shillings in Blackfriars' Wynd?"
"I'll tak it oot o' his blude," was the surly reply.
"And why not out of his sister's?" said the "Spune," with another dark
look as unnecessary as the former.
"Just as sune,--a' ane."
"And," continued the tempter, where no temptation was necessary, "I know
where she lies, just in the southeast angle, where he told me his father
was laid."
"Why no him?" replied Mowat; "a' ane."
"Rotten ten years ago, you idiot," said the other, getting impatient.
"Weel, the fresh ane then."
"Now you are sensible," continued the friendly counsellor; "we might have
her here in the morning, with five pounds each in our pockets, and a laugh
in our sleeves at Merrylees."
"I never saw you laugh," said Mowat, in perfect innocence.
"No more you did, nor any other person, 'cause its always in the sleeve.
Doesn't do to laugh about these things--they're scientific."
"Umph! dinna understand that; but I'm ready when you like."
"That's right," replied the gratified "Spune." "Have Cameron's donkey and
cart at the south end of Newington by ten o'clock. It's moonlight, I
think."
"Dinna ken, but it's a' ane. I'll be there; but, mind, you stand the
whisky this time."
And so (having indulged, perhaps, in our own way of putting this
conversation--the _contenu_ being the same) the important enterprise was
arranged with that zest on the part of the grave and precise principal
which results from secrecy; for it was impossible to suppose that
Merrylees could suspect that even they were capable of preying on their
fellow-labourer, and robbing the nest of any affections that might hang
about it.
At the appointed time the "Moudiewart" was at his post with the little
cuddy and the cart, where he was soon joined by his friend. Away they
went,--Mowat driving, and the "Spune" lying extended in the vehicle, in
utter disregard of the poor animal, not much larger than himself. With
such an object before them, comprehending within the success of its
acquisition the gratification of two of the strongest passions of degraded
man, and no sensibility to admit of the feeling of a reaction in the
quietness of the road and the increasing stillness of the hour, with, in
addition, an auspicious moon, in whose face they could look only as a
light-giving thing that makes gnomes out of head-stones, they might have
been supposed to be merry. But no, there were no salient points in their
natures from which could spring even that mirth which rides on the back of
horrors. Mutely they drove along, with no sounds to break the silence,
save the patter of the donkey's feet and the turns of the wheels. Very
different this silent progress from those expeditions in which Merrylees
formed a part, and where, if there was necessarily absent everything like
the rational discourse of human beings, there was yet something to relieve
the monotony in the shout after draining off a glass, the muscular
contortions, and the _bizarres étourderies_ of their strange friend. It
was the caravan without the fool, and even he, as a son of Momus and
Angerona, or some such mongrels, was a droll against his will. Sad fate to
him who, even in his efforts not to be the cause of mirth in others, could
himself become the butt of those whom, not more stupid, he could, in his
self-protection, afford to despise. But Merrylees had at length fallen
among his enemies, and must abide the issue of a terrible revenge.
By about the hour of half-past twelve they had reached a part of the road
where, by the convenience of a slap, they could leave their equipage, with
the donkey's neck fixed to a post, and his head within reach of some
tempting provender. All this arranged to their satisfaction, they searched
about for stray loungers, none of whom could be espied,--so straight they
went to their destined work. As familiar with the burying-ground as they
were with their own squalid dwellings, they were soon among the green
hillocks, few of which, as they saw by the light of the moon, which came
upon them in fitful gleams, making all these sombre things more like the
productions of _feerie_ than of honest nature, held out any temptations to
these lovers of new sod. But at length the "Spune" stopped at an elevation
more recent than any around it.
"This is the grave of Merrylees' father anyhow," said the superior.
"Then out with him," said the stolid Mowat.
"Still the idiot," said the other. "Did I not tell you last night he's
gone into powder ten years ago, and that it's the sister we're after?"
"Then out wi' her," was the sulky reply.
Nor did the "Spune" need the stimulus of the stolid. He began straight the
work,--difficult and arduous to all but such adepts,--puffing, and drawing
wind to puff again.
"Hush!" said Mowat. "I heard a noise."