affair which had wellnigh put a stop to the career of these wonderful men,
and we cannot help thinking, in looking back upon it, that it should not
have led to a complete discovery. The herring barrel, containing the two
bodies, was placed in a cart. An old horse, which Hare had used in his
traffic in fish and crockery-ware, was yoked to it, and the two set out in
the darkening to Surgeon's Square with their cargo. They proceeded along
the West Port without anything remarkable happening, but when they reached
the marketplace, at the entrance to the Grassmarket, the horse stopped,
and, notwithstanding all their efforts, would not move a leg. They were in
confusion. Exposure was imminent. As Burke afterwards said, they thought
"the poor old horse had risen up in judgment against them." A crowd
collected, but, strangely enough, the people were so much occupied with
the horse that they never thought of inquiring what was in the cart; and
when it was found that neither entreaties nor blows would induce the
animal to move forward, two porters were allowed to bear off the burden
without any particular notice. Nay, these men so much less squeamish than
the horse, took the barrel to the dissecting rooms without ever asking
what they were carrying. The horse, which it is probable age and hard
usage had arrested in its progress, was, in revenge for the fright it had
caused its masters, led to a neighbouring tannery and slaughtered. It was
of no value in Surgeon's Square.[7]
The Stray Waifs
There is no great wonder that thinking people, while admitting ruling
motives of action, should be chary about the question of their origin; how
one rises out of another, and that out of one further removed, and so
forth, as deep down as you please. The harlequin jackets may be removed
one after another, till you come to the skin, which, being white, is said
to be of no colour, only a negative, as also has been said of black. In
another view, the subject appears still more unfruitful; for, as you may
bring a tune, combining the grave and the gay, out of one length of
catgut, so the human mind will give you off all sorts of feelings, some
good and some bad, in the course of the same hour. In truth, as our doings
are made up of passions and restraints, which latter may be passions as
well, we will never understand thoroughly a human action. When we admit
that these great criminals took away lives, right and left, for the sake
of money, how much do we achieve? We just accuse them of what the Greeks
called _chrysomania_, or madness for gold. Strange that in our country,
where the passion is pretty strong, we have no such name, avarice being
entirely different; but this passion may have been a rider on the love of
drink, and then we cannot estimate either the one or the other, till we
know the force of the countervailing restraints. If these--and there are
many--are weak or _nil_, the passion may be a very weak affair, so that
such beings as our principal actors might--seeing they wanted pity and
religion and fear--have thought less of suffocating a fellow-creature than
Bellarmine did of removing a fly from his face. With no pretension to be
teachers, we offer these hints merely as explanatory of our manner of
treating a subject much discussed at the time.
Of one thing, however, we may be certain, and that is, the effect of
familiarity in removing those inconvenient asperities called scruples,
which nature is continually casting up to preserve the triumph of the good
over the evil; and so we may well be satisfied that every succeeding
success operated with the double effect of confirming the prior purpose
and stimulating to a repetition. This is merely the confidence inspired by
habit, with which we are all daily cognisant; and therefore the subsequent
atrocities ought really to excite less curiosity, though not less
revulsion, than those that went before. Yet this is not found to be the
case, and the reason is, that even great men in the murdering way are
generally content with one trial, as being sufficient for all their power
to carry before the judgment-seat of God.
It is always to be remembered that all these moral wonders took place in
very quick succession, and only a few weeks pass until we arrive at the
waifs. The actors had come to see that they had a great stage to perform
on, and supplied as well with innumerable objects. They had only to look a
few yards to the west, up Portsburgh, or to the east, up the Grassmarket
and Cowgate, to be certain that "a ten pounds," all prepared, was walking
or staggering as if every roll to a side offered to be one into their
arms. They had thus reason, if they had been of a philosophical
habit,--and one had the poetry of sentiment--to thank the great genius
Society for his injustice to his own members. And what an extraordinary
injustice it appears, when we consider that the high head of Wealth is
upheld by the tax of respect imposed upon the poor and the humble! If
there were no inferiors to witness a man's greatness, he would be great no
more; and yet those who are the soil from which this moral grandness
springs are left to rot, as if the more it approached to compost the
ranker would be the tribute to his mightiness: so, without abating our
horror of these men, we cannot altogether forget that the sufferers in
most instances were cast away by Mammon to be in turn immolated to Mammon.
They had in short a bank--Heaven knows, not of "elegance"--upon which
they could pass a draft when they chose; nor was it forged--they were
themselves the drawers, and the money seemed to belong to no one; so
careless at that time--it is, we hope, different now--was society of those
whom it was bound to look after and protect. So money was again needed,
and Burke was to pass the draft, because perhaps his companion thought
that as there is (of course) honour among thieves, so fair play must be
esteemed a jewel among manslayers. And here the strange circumstance
occurred, in the midst of all these strange things, that his draft was to
be endorsed _by a constable_. He had been among his dear friends in the
Canongate,--and a man or a woman had now a value for him which a short
time before he never dreamt of,--thinking of how he could make some of
them more dear to him than they seemed to be to themselves, when his
attention was directed to a poor unfortunate, steeped in poverty and
drink, in the hands of a police officer. Mixing with the crowd, he went up
to the officer, and, with much apparent sympathy, interfered for one who
had no home and no friends to care for her. He would furnish that home, at
least for a time, and be that friend. The poor woman, like some of the
others who had wondered that they should become objects of interest,
looked at him as one may be supposed to do who has considered herself past
the hope of man's charity. Some of the crowd, struck with the offer,
backed the sympathiser, and the policeman, considering for a little, at
last consented, giving her up to the kind friend,--no other than a
philanthropist of the humbler order, but perhaps not the less
sincere,--and enjoining upon him the due performance of his promise.
Having got his charge, the crowd--whose curiosity was served not less than
its benevolence, for these poor people feel intensely for each other's
sorrows, the more by reason that no one else does--separated. Then, alas!
the old story. The tempter and the victim pace the streets towards the
block-altar of the sacrifice; and as they go, we may consider how many
have achieved a world-wide notoriety for having concocted one of these
acts, with the attending circumstances of having watched their opportunity
and been defeated, and still kept to their purpose, and, veiling all in
romantic mystery, at length effected their object. Such men, and their
solitary performance, with which they were contented, or to which they
were limited by the gallows, are only qualified to form a meagre episode
to the terrible drama we are with so much imperfection evolving; even as
Faust's vision rose in curling smoke, and took on the gigantic form of a
being out of nature and belonging to another world. We have heard of
hardened men who gave those they intended to sacrifice time to pray. There
was allowed only short shrift in Log's lodgings. Before nightfall this
woman lay doubled up in a tea-chest. We will not disturb you in your
pause as your mind, led by her who dropped pity's tear on the written
words of the recording angel, goes away back to the youth or the
maidenhood of this woman. The "perhaps" has a weakness in it, but who
shall gainsay, with the doctrine of chances against him, that she was, as
you may be, beautiful and good, yea, at one time looking forward to years
of happiness, a redeemed's death, and a Christian's funeral, even with
that confidence which--blessings on your pitiful heart!--will be
sanctified and verified to you, because it is in God?
We are not done with the waifs even so far as known, and their number has
never been recorded. It was a practice of Burke to wander out in the early
mornings. He would have been seen pacing the solitude of the deserted
streets even before cock-crow. Nor could any man tell the reason: it was
not asked, not even speculated upon. Like the traces of sympathetic ink,
the notice lay unverified, till the great disclosure, when it came up
fresh into many minds. And it came up all at once, with the suspicion that
he did not go those solitary rounds for contemplation, far less from
remorse; a feeling which, so far as can be ascertained--for the pang of
the wistful look of the dumb boy was suspected to be a mere trick of the
prison confessional--never ruffled his pillow. The night-hawk goes to bed
in the early morning, before the choir offer their song to the rising sun,
and these catch no flies till he is far up in the heavens. The first
surmise of the discovery of what had been doing in Log's lodgings sprang
the suspicion with elastic rapidity, that these early walks were
undertaken in prosecution of the old purpose, and specially stimulated by
an interest in that institution--to be found, we believe, nowhere
else--the cinder-women;[8] not singing-birds these, if he was not a
night-hawk; but the osprey is as early on the long sands, when there is
not to be seen there a living thing, except the gulls, as they pace so
securely the edge of the sea.
A very early riser in Edinburgh is impressed with the sight of these thin,
haggard figures flitting from backet to backet in the great solitude. The
only moving creatures in the long streets,--if you did not know they had
any other object in view,--you would think that, being immured in the dark
dens of the Old Town, and ashamed to shew their faces during the day, they
crawl out to get a _glimpse_ of their old haunts, where, as unfortunates,
(the greater number,) they once flaunted their charms, till they faded to
the point of recoil. You would say, too, that they belonged neither to
this world nor any other--mere pendencies, with no solidity to keep them
on the earth, and no wings to take them from it--hopeless, too, and
fearless, not from despair or passion, but from sheer inanity--glimmers,
not lights, flickering at the end of wicks, with no oil except what they
have imbibed long before. It was this prey that brought the prowler out so
early in the morning; and he might have revelled in a field so fruitful
long enough, without that risk of discovery which attended his other
assaults. Friendless as they are, with years intervening since they were
cast off, not only from society, but from those who once knew them,--some
worshippers of beauty, perhaps,--there were none to inquire after them,
scarcely any to miss them, except a sister straggler, who might wonder for
a moment why a shadow had disappeared.
That more of these creatures fell into his hands than the culprit
confessed, was the general opinion of the time. One, at least, was
certain, as a waif scarcely worthy of mention among so many cases, and
these so much more _éclatants_. On that eventful morning he was more early
than usual; the gray mists only as yet disappearing, and the figures he
sought for looming as shadows here and there at long intervals. It was
supposed to be in the New Town where he encountered the hopeless, soulless
creature, scraping as usual in a dust-box, picking up the bits of cinders,
and peering in the dim light for the chance turn-up of the sign of some
servant's _lâcheté_. A more easy approach than ever, with the charmed
"dram" on his lips, sufficient to bring the light of hope once more to the
cinder eyes. Even the long distance from the New Town, by the Mound and
the Bow, to Log's lodgings, as they paced and paced, would only increase
the hope, to be gratified at the end. And of course it was gratified; so
cheap a purchase, too, where the oil was all in the wick, and the blue
glimmer, rendered for a short time white by a glass only once repeated,
would recede into unconsciousness almost before the energy to take
advantage of it was up in arms. While this work was doing, in which the
accomplice rose from his sleep to join, the women were in bed--saved in
this instance from the trouble of their delicacy in going into another
room, or the passage, as they sometimes did. Nay, the cock had not crowed
before all was over. The gurgling sound would be weak. It has been said
that the death-scream of the surprised sinner, and the dying prayer of the
Christian, are the extremes which terminate two courses of life. They may
be the last signs in this world and the first in the next, as they are the
farewell to time or the salutation to eternity. Who was there to care?
The Relative.
So far we have had details through the medium of confessions uttered when
the only _terriculumentum_ to be feared by those who had no belief in a
hereafter--the law--had given forth her decree of death, supplemented as
these were by collateral testimony, or, rather, desultory remarks of
others who had seen portions of the drama; but in some instances there
were thrown across the light which at last illuminated the mystery,
certain shadows with no defined forms, and through which the light shone
only to make them lurid.
Of this kind of partially-revealed secrets was the story of the young
cousin. No name or personal marks or place of origin ever came to the
public ear, far less the form or features of the sacrificed; only,
and no more, that a cousin of Helen M'Dougal's,--by uncle or aunt
uncertain,--left her mother and sister,--from whence, also under the
gnome,--to visit her relative in Edinburgh. It was known that she entered
under the door-lintel of Log's lodgings, and was never seen again. If the
world, as a spasmodic poet tells us, were destroyed, a few atoms left of
the wreck, with their internal forces of attraction and repulsion, would
enable a philosopher to tell how it was made. We smile at the
extravagance, while we acknowledge some kind of truth, which we cannot
understand. These small traces of the little world of crime within the
back room "with the window looking out on the dead wall," long since
destroyed and erased from the bigger world of which it formed a part and
the shame, may be brought together and filled up by the imagination, with
a certainty so far removed from the feeling of fiction, that we might
scarcely regret the want of particulars. We have had small need of that
faculty in our history; yet, comparatively, of that little world we know
next to nothing. We might as well deny to the welcomed cousin a name and a
place of birth, as refuse to believe that she went into that house with
the expectation of meeting friendship, if not love, to a greater degree
than what was held out to the hope of others. They would shake hands with
her--(what love and hypocrisy don't?)--and there would be inquiries after
the mother, and the sister too;--just what takes place at all such
meetings. Nor are we to forget the welcome in the still more common shape,
not the fatted calf, but the bottle of whisky, so useful an auxiliary
there. If the paramour or husband of her cousin ever sung his sentimental
airs, he would surely not refuse on the occasion of a visit of one allied
to him in the bonds of affinity. There could not help being joy, for it
was through the light of the feeling of mirth that these eight eyes looked
on the guest they were making happy. Those who have read the German tale
of the two eyes which followed everywhere Hans Kauffmann, and never glared
upon him but when he was alone in the dark, and which at an after-period
he saw shining in the face of his enemy, as that enemy, the wreaker of
vengeance, stood over him with the thirsty sword, may trace a resemblance;
but as for these eyes of the four hosts looking anger on the poor
relative, we may safely place that among the impossibilities--and surely
we do that more easily than we can fancy the expression of that peculiar
welcome.
We wonder how nature so often leaves us in the dark. We cannot understand
that she has so much to do that she is for ever in a hurry, so that we
only see at times the skirt of her cloak. Then we are ourselves so
restless and impatient for knowledge, that we snuff the candle of our
inquiry so often that we can see nothing. Perhaps all this is intended for
the purpose of giving us a wider world of imagination, and more ardour in
peopling it with all its strange beings, spectral images, protean forms,
wild movements--for what further end we know not, but we work our
privilege in these days of fiction very well. The veil is often an
exaggerator, but in this act of our drama it seems hard to fill up the
unknown recesses with possibilities equal to the realities. Just try to
supply the required minutiæ to the few words said to have been uttered by
Helen M'Dougal. After many months of fruitless inquiry, met with a denial
that any one in Log's lodgings had seen the young cousin, the mother and
sister, probably under suspicion of some foul play, went to the house of
Constantine Burke, the brother of our man. Helen M'Dougal happened to be
present, and to the request again made to know what had become of the
girl, the woman, who must have been under the influence of drink, for at
this time the explosion had not taken place, answered, "Oh, you need not
trouble yourselves about Jessy. She was murdered, and sold long ago."
Among the cases of mere outline and shadowy traces, suspected to have been
more in number, as including more waifs than admitted, we may place
another. It seems to have been a bargain between the two principal actors
that their work should be conjunct in action as well as in payment. On one
occasion, Burke, having now plenty of money, went to the country on a
pleasure jaunt. Yes; pleasure. Amidst all our philosophy and inquiry into
causes and motives, would we not save ourselves a deal of trouble by
attributing nine-tenths of the actions of men, not excepting murder, to a
desire for pleasure? All swallow the love-apple bait presented by some
wicked genius of the devil, who sports with the affections of mankind.
The beguiler laughs as he angles. Some victims afford him fine "rises,"
and look shy, only to come again to bite in earnest. Some swallow and
enjoy the sweet morsel, until the hook approaches the pylorus of their
reason. Some disgorge it, to seek it again; others break the line and run
away with the hook, to die in secret places under a crag. Some are caught
by a fin, and carry the mark of the forbidden pleasure only to excite them
to another trial; others are held on till they reach the bank, where they
writhe in agony amidst sunbeams, wild thyme, and gaudy flowers, with the
laugh of the tempter sounding in their ears. And some, on being swung
ashore, get entangled _in a tree_, and hang there by the neck. How few can
nibble off cunningly the _cibum præfixum ære_, and avoid the snare! Burke
had gone on a pleasure jaunt--not to be hooked yet. On his return he found
Log's lodgings as he left them; nor did he suspect that any of the unholy
work had been performed in his absence. If the old orgies had been
continued,--and how could they now be renounced when the increasing weight
of all those deeds must have been pressing more and more on their hearts,
however they might try to conceal it, and required the old art of buoyancy
as a counter-agent?--there had been plenty of money to supply the means,
so that Burke thought that no march had been stolen upon him by his
cunning colleague. It happened, however, that he had occasion soon after
his return to call at the hall in Surgeon's Square--perhaps to get the
price, or part of it, of the last burden. He was there told by one of the
assistants that his friend had been there shortly before with a box, not
empty, and had been paid for it. He even got the day of the month and the
hour of the evening, from which he saw that his co-actor had been
secretly, as he said, working during his absence "on his own hook."
Enraged at this want of honour, he repaired to the house, where he found
his friend, and taxed him with the fraud. Hare stoutly denied the charge.
The women were appealed to, but neither of them would admit anything; for
we are to remember that both of them were not only in fear of their
respective lords, but of those of each other. Nay, we have seen Hare using
as much liberty of punishing M'Dougal when his friend was present, as
Burke had of thrashing Mrs Hare, which it is certain he often did. Nay,
the women even had their battles royal, and the men were, as well, often
engaged in fierce conflict. The present subject was a _delicate_ one. It
touched the honour of contractors, the purse of sordidness, and the faith
of friendship. Well, we verily believe that even Burke was fit for these
heroics, and he was fit for something else. He fell upon his friend with
fury, and Hare, ever ready for battle with all and sundry, not excepting
his wife, retaliated. They fought long and desperately, the women looking
on with only that concern which might find its account in so being
revenged for some prior cruelty exercised toward them by one or the other,
perhaps both. This was one of those riots which so much disturbed the
neighbours. A crowd, as usual, collected at the door, but even the
exasperation of the parties could not force out the secret of their
quarrel. It would have been strange indeed if it had! and we say this even
in the midst of daily examples of anger roused to a pitch of opening the
floodgates of very dark things, even to the confusion and ruin of the
angry, and so far involuntary, confessor. How little did that crowd of
spectators know what these men were fighting about!
But if the subject was the price of a human body, whose spirit was it that
enlivened it--man or woman, young or old, good or evil? The creature
passed away in the middle of a large city renowned for civilisation, and
even with the tread of passers-by reaching the scene, more secretly than
one who perishes at sea; for, in that case, though there is none to see,
there are always some to draw a conclusion. Yet, withal, we cannot say
that Providence does not vindicate the importance of its creatures. That
victim would, for certain, be mourned somewhere. There are even notes of
woe in the grove, when the missing mate is snared by the fowler, though no
one may be there to hear. It was remarked at the time when the great
secret burst, and the news flew on the back of broadsheets throughout the
land, that there were scarcely any direct declarations of claims. Even
when conviction was heavy on the heart that a missing relative could in a
certain way be accounted for, the issues were spasmed, and people only
looked their thoughts. If the whisper passed, it was only among close
relatives, and they kept the secret to themselves, even to the exclusion
of friends. It was from this cause that the papers could not, with all
their efforts, pander to the curiosity of the public by giving names. Nay,
so awe-struck was that public itself, that, after the first excitement and
wonder, and after Burke had paid the penalty, there seemed a wish to hurry
away from both the subject and its details. They wanted back to their
natural feelings and sympathies; and the hurriedness with which the crimes
were laid past, with the resolution that they should not be mentioned,
seemed to hold some ratio to their gigantic proportions. But the reasons
which actuated the people of the time are not these by which posterity is
to be influenced; for vice, whatever may be its degree, must ever be the
foil of goodness, and the punishment of the wicked the sanction of virtue.
It was even said by one of the newspapers of the day, that these records
would at some future time form the materials out of which some Sir Walter
would weave a romance. The prophecy is not justified in us. The
romance-writer will come; at present, we are content with the office of
chronicler.