chronicle, and how much too that what we have already said were the worst
we have to say! But thus begun, it behoved that the obstinacy of these men
should harden more and more; that the recklessness increased by success
should, according to rule, get more and more regardless of danger, till
the delirium of wickedness should throw them into the hands of justice.
Already "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the
ground."
The Study for the Artist.
If these conspirators against society had limited their operations to the
waifs,--a wide enough field surely in a city like Edinburgh, renowned at
the time for the extent of the wide tattered fringe of the social
web,--they might have remained undetected for a lengthened period;--ay,
even until they had cut off hundreds; and why they left this secure area
can only be accounted for by that universal law whereby the doers of evil
acquire a confidence which blinds them to all sense of danger. The bold
and reckless case of the young cousin was the first indication of the
coming change, and we will see with what rapidity the progress was pursued
in terms of that inevitable decree of Providence.
It has been mentioned that Burke had a brother of the name of Constantine,
who, having driven a desultory trade something of the nature of that
followed by his brother and his associate, had become a street-sweeper or
scavenger, and lived in Gibb's Close in the Canongate. It never was
satisfactorily established that this man was acquainted with the
conspiracy, although many suspicions, especially arising out of the case
of Mary Paterson, which is now to form the burden of our chapter, appeared
to hang heavy upon him. For once the scene of death was changed from the
old shambles to Gibb's Close. Mary Paterson, a young girl of eighteen or
nineteen years of age, of remarkably handsome form, as to which we will
hear more by and by, and who turned her attractions to no other use than
that of _the old abuse_, had been, along with a companion named Janet
Brown, lodged in the Canongate Police-office, on Tuesday the 8th of April
1828. They were kept till four or five o'clock next morning, when they
repaired to the house of a person called Mrs Laurie, where they had
formerly lodged together. They had been for some time constant friends,
and had more of affection for each other than is generally found among
individuals of their class. The woman, who felt for them, expressed a wish
that they should remain, but, for some reason unknown, they preferred
another course, and went to the house of one Swanston, who sold drink.
They got there a gill of whisky, and when they were drinking the spirits,
their eye fell upon Burke, who was there even at that hour, busy drinking
rum and bitters with the landlord. They had never seen Burke before, and
made no sign of a wish to enter into conversation with him; but he, who
appeared to have been watching them, came forward, and, affecting to be
much taken with them, ordered an additional supply of the rum and
bitters; nor did this drinking bout finish till three gills were consumed
in addition to what they had drunk before. Of this drink Burke
participated largely; and, indeed, it was supposed that he often wrought
himself designedly up to his required point of courage by the means of
liquor when he had any special work to accomplish.
In the course of the debauch, and when he discovered that the girls were
of that kind who, when begun to drink, are regardless of limits, he
proposed that they should accompany him to his lodgings, which he said
were close by. Mary was willing enough, but her companion, Brown, shewed
signs of reluctance, not probably being much enamoured of their new
friend. Whereupon he roused himself to remove her scruples, by shewing
money, and stating that he was a pensioner, and could keep her, Brown,
handsomely, even make her comfortable for life; and that if she had any
fears of the people in the house, he would stand by her against any
insolence or abuse. All this attention, as Brown subsequently stated, was,
as she thought, directed to her in preference to Mary--with whom, as for
personal recommendations, she could not compete--in consequence of her shy
and backward nature wherein she was a contrast to her friend, who was of a
disposition fearless and forward. Besides, he knew from their apparent
affection for each other that the one would not accompany him without the
other. At length Brown gave up her scruples, and all the more readily that
he made the additional offer to provide a good breakfast for them, as an
earnest of all that which he had promised to do for them. Matters being
now arranged, he bought from Swanston two bottles of whisky, one of which
he gave to each of the two girls to carry. He then conducted them to the
house of Constantine Burke, where they found that man and his wife already
up, but with the fire as yet unlighted. Whereupon Burke got into a great
fury, abusing the woman for negligence in not paying more attention--a
feint with a meaning of which some supposed she was not altogether
ignorant.
Straightway the gloomy aspect of the miserable house, the residence of so
rich a pensioner, was removed by the new-lighted fire, and the woman with
all activity set to work, in which she was joined by her handy
brother-in-law, to produce a hearty breakfast for her lodger and guests.
Tea, bread and butter, eggs and finnan haddocks, covered the table. They
were now merry: the effects of the previous drink had not yet died away,
while the breakfast before them, and the promises of the new friend, all
tended towards a state of happiness to which the poor girls were total
strangers. Meanwhile the brother, who joined in the breakfast, left
shortly to proceed to his work; and the meal having been finished, with
the cups and other things left remaining on the table, the two bottles of
whisky were produced. The drinking again commenced, Burke still
participating to a large extent, at the same time that he pressed glass
after glass profusely upon the girls. The impulsive and reckless Mary,
still true to her character, shewed no scruples. One glass followed
another, till by and by the drug began to shew signs of a speedy triumph;
but Brown was more chary, often refusing the proffered poison; not that
she had any suspicions of evil design on the part of the generous
pensioner, but simply because she did not wish to get drunk--a
consummation so clearly impending, with two bottles on the table, and only
three participants.
Burke now saw that Mary, who had fallen back on the chair all but
unconscious, was safe. The next step to be taken in his scheme, which,
notwithstanding the enormous quantity of drink he had swallowed, he
prosecuted deliberately, was to get Brown, still comparatively sober, out
of the house; and he cunningly proposed to go along with her for a walk,
to revive them after their potations. The girl at once agreed, and,
leaving Mary in her narcotised condition, they sallied forth; but the
purpose of a walk was changed, and, inconsistently enough, Brown soon
found herself in another public-house with her generous and most
persevering friend. Here two bottles of London stout were ordered, along
with a pie, and the girl, whose natural caution and shyness were not proof
against so much seduction, drank a large share of the porter, Burke
himself shewing no reluctance to participate as well, knowing not only
that he could stand a great amount of drink, but that the more he took,
within the limits of consciousness, if not coolness, the better able he
would be for the execution of his purpose--in this instance, as it
appeared, a double one, involving both the girls at the same time, or, at
least, with a short intervening interval. The porter having had its due
effect upon Brown, who was yet, however, far from "the point," he then
induced her to accompany him again to the house they had left. Here the
remainder of the two bottles of whisky was produced, Mary all the time
lying almost unconscious, and only raising her head at times, and looking
with stupid earnestness on the proceedings.
Now there comes up a new incident in the play, which has never been well
explained. All of a sudden Helen M'Dougal, whom we might have supposed to
be in Log's lodgings, who had not appeared at breakfast, and had not
hitherto been seen by the girls, starts violently out of a bed. There is a
whisper by Constantine's wife in the ear of Brown, that the apparition is
no other than Burke's wife; and the latter immediately commenced, with all
appearance of a jealous fury, to accuse the girls of having the intention
of corrupting her husband. The part was so well acted, that Brown, getting
alarmed, entreated forgiveness, on the plea that neither she nor Mary had
known that he was married, otherwise they would not have remained in his
company. The play proceeds. Helen M'Dougal breaks down: she was, she said,
not angry with them, only with her husband, who was continually deserting
her, spending his money on loose women, and leading a life of dissipation.
She then asked them to remain, and with such apparent sincerity that Brown
was satisfied, but as for Mary she was incapable of understanding a much
less complicated plot. M'Dougal next turned against Burke, upbraiding him
for his infidelity, taking up the things that were upon the table, dashing
them into the fire, and otherwise exhibiting the height of a woman's
passion. Nor was Burke indolent or regardless of this fierce onset; he
retaliated, and taking up a dram-glass hurled it against her face, hitting
her above the eye, and cutting, even to profuse bleeding, her forehead. At
this time, or a few minutes before, Constantine's wife rushed out of the
house, with the intention, as Brown subsequently supposed, of bringing
Hare, but it is more probable, on the supposition of an art-and-partship,
to the extent at least of knowledge, that she found some good reason for
being merely absent. Immediately after her departure, Burke succeeded,
with an apparent effort, in turning Helen M'Dougal to the door, and
locking it after her.
Pausing a little in the midst of our narrative, we may remark, that
although it was generally supposed that this quarrel between Burke and
Helen M'Dougal was got up for the purpose of confusion, yet it is not
easy to see how any end could have been served by it; while the cutting of
the woman's face had too much seriousness about it, even as a part of the
terrible drama, to admit of the theory of an entire feint. The discrepancy
may be reconciled by the introduction of another passion, jealousy, but
this we cannot recognise, however true, except upon the assumption that
M'Dougal had some reason in her own mind to lead her to the suspicion that
Burke could be unfaithful to her with the very women he intended to slay.
Nor, however aggravating this may be, where aggravation seemed impossible,
it cannot be held as transcending the potentialities of a nature
altogether alienated from God, especially when we keep in remembrance the
true character of the passion thus imputed to Burke, as being so often
utterly independent of the emotion of love, in which a moral sentiment
forms a necessary element. This collision, as it were, between the desire
that Burke should _kill_, and another, that he should not _possess_, would
produce that irregularity, as we term it, in the plot which imparts to the
acting the incongruity so difficult to the analyses of the time. But while
it in some measure interferes with the unity so congenial to the
romancist, and which we unreasonably look for in nature, because it is
more consistent with art, it presents us with a picture of human nature
never before witnessed out of the domain of extravagant fiction.
At the time that Burke returned, after the locking out, Mary was lying
across the bed, not having been able, even during the heat and noise of
battle, to lift her head to satisfy the natural curiosity of her sex, if
the curiosity itself was not altogether sopited. Burke knew the prolonged
continuance of these states, proportioned as they were to the quantity of
poison he had seen swallowed. So Mary is laid up as a reserve, ready for
his assault at any time within the period of hours. He therefore turned
his attention to the less easy subject, her companion, expressing still
greater kindness to her, and pressing her by all manner of solicitation to
lie down along with him in the bed from which, shortly before, his wife
had so unexpectedly sprung, and who, even yet, with continued
inconsistency, persisted in knocking at the door. So strong were these
solicitations, and so affected was Brown with the drink she had taken,
that, according to her own statement afterwards, she would have complied
with his request if it had not been that she was terrified by the noise
made by M'Dougal. Either supposition is possible, that he wished to
gratify a purpose upon the one, and then execute his final intention upon
her companion; or that he intended to immolate first the more difficult
victim, and then take his own time with the other.
Fortunately the poor girl was able to resist his entreaties, as much
probably through some instinctive feeling as from prudence. Anxious to
get away, she expressed a wish to depart, to which Burke at first shewed
no inclination, but at length, and probably under the pressure of an
apprehension that, inebriated as she was, she might call for assistance,
and thus deprive him of Mary, whom, as she lay still senseless, he already
calculated upon as his own, he agreed to her request. He even conducted
her past Helen M'Dougal, who was still upon the stair, either under the
influence of her jealousy or of the old delicacy which so often took her
out of the view of the final catastrophes. In all this Brown made a narrow
escape, for whether Mrs Constantine Burke had really gone for the other,
and perhaps greater, arch-conspirator, Hare, or not, it is certain that
that fearful man arrived at Gibb's Close not long after the departure of
Brown. The moment Hare arrived, and there being now no one in the house
except themselves, and the unconscious Mary still lying in bed, they fell
straight upon their victim. The old story again. The process was familiar
to them--the energy at ready call--the execution easy. Burke springs upon
the senseless victim--Hare is at his post--the heavy body pressing with
the knees upon the soft bosom--the closing up of the mouth and nose--the
gurgling--the long inspirations--the watchings to listen, and listen
again, and examine if all was finished--the make-sure--the finish. So
quickly had the process been gone through that, on Brown's return, not
more than twenty minutes afterwards, Mary Paterson was lying dead, but
concealed from her observation by having been flung into a corner and
covered up.
It may be of interest now to trace Brown. After getting past Helen
M'Dougal, who was on the stair, about, no doubt, to watch the process
inside, she went straight to Mrs Laurie's, and told her, with a laugh,
that she would not remain with her, as she had got fine lodgings
elsewhere; but after informing the landlady more seriously of the
circumstances, she was advised to go back, along with Mrs Laurie's
servant, and endeavour to get Mary removed; not, however, that either the
one or the other had any fears of her ultimate safety. The accompaniment
of the servant was probably another of the apparently accidental means by
which the life of this girl was preserved. Half stupified as she still
was, she did not recollect the name of the close in which the house was
situated, and being at a loss, but still anxious about her comrade, whom
she loved, she applied to Swanston for a direction to the residence of the
man whom she had seen there in the morning, and with whom she and her
friend had gone. The man replied, that they ought not to have gone with
him, because he was a married man, and did not keep company with women of
their kind, but that she would probably find him in his brother's house,
in Gibb's Close. Still, so stupified was she that, after getting into the
close, she went into the wrong house, where she was told that the people
there kept no company with such characters, but that she would probably
feel herself in the right direction by going up-stairs. They accordingly
ascended, entered, and found there Helen M'Dougal, Hare, and Hare's wife.
The dead prey had collected the ravens even within so short a time. Burke
was absent--no doubt in Surgeon's Square; but those present, with the
corpse within a few feet of them, were as unconcerned as if one among them
had been engaged in throttling a chicken for dinner.
Upon inquiry for her friend, Mrs Hare rushed forward and attempted to
strike Brown,--a movement not easily accounted for, except upon the
supposition of a feminine way of repelling an intruder upon their secrecy,
who might be dangerous; but this burst gave way to a quieter demeanour,
the result of greater prudence, for the recklessness of passion is not
exclusive of minor means of self-preservation. They told her that Mary had
gone out with Burke, and invited her to sit down and take a glass with
them, upon which the servant left. Brown now saw Hare's eye fixed upon
her, and no doubt her partial inebriation was a temptation which was
touching; and Helen M'Dougal continued her part of the play, by railing
against her husband for going away with the girl whose dead body was
actually in the room. Brown, surrounded by the three fiends, was again in
danger; but, fortunately, Mrs Laurie, who had got alarmed at the report
of the servant, upon what precise grounds is not known, sent back the girl
to bring away Brown. No attempt was made to retain her in the presence of
the servant, but she was invited to return,--a circumstance so adverse to
the policy of keeping away so interested an inquirer as to be almost proof
of their intention to send her after her friend, the double object of the
price of her body and the seal of secrecy being the motive.
Meanwhile, changes had been going on in the house; and when Brown, in the
afternoon, again called, Hare was gone--having given up his hope of the
further prey, as he would calculate upon Brown's gradual return to
sobriety. She was now told that Burke and Mary had never returned. Further
inquiries were made, not only by Brown, but by a Mrs Worthington, with
whom the two girls lived, and then another story was trumped up, to the
effect that Mary had gone on the tramp with a packman to Glasgow. This
story pleased Brown less than the other, which carried the inconsistency
of a recovery from drunken unconsciousness in so short a time; while the
tramp to Glasgow, and no intimation from that quarter, were equally unlike
the habits of the girl, who could write an intelligent letter, and would
certainly have done so if for no other object than to inform Brown of her
departure and to claim her clothes, which still lay in Mrs Worthington's.
No further intelligence was ever obtained till the great break up. The
fate of Mary Paterson was meanwhile a mystery. But when we take into
account the vagrant habits of these restless and changeful beings, we need
make no reproach on the want of affection of friends or relatives.
We may state here that Brown believed firmly that Constantine Burke and
his wife were cognisant of this affair, both from their manner at the time
and the conduct of the man afterwards when she questioned him about Mary.
Often, when he was at his work in the morning, she inquired if he had
heard any further intelligence of her companion, but the answers were
surly and snatchy,--"How the h--ll can I tell about you sort of people,
here to-day and away to-morrow?" or, again, "I am often out upon my lawful
business, and how can I answer for all that takes place in my house in my
absence?" And so the inquiries for Mary Paterson died away for lack of
satisfaction, and the only hope that remained was that some day she would
cast up when weary of her wanderings with the packman.
The account which Brown gave of this unfortunate creature is touching. She
admitted that she was irregular in her habits, but far from being low in
her grade; and expressed her indignation at a paltry print which appeared
of her, representing her in the garb of a servant, a dress in which she
never appeared. She had been well educated for one in her sphere, and
possessed, as we have already said, a fine person, for which she was
remarkable. She was a native of Edinburgh; and her mother being dead, she
was left to herself, driven along in her career by a frowardness of
purpose and impulsiveness of feeling, not yet inconsistent with a warm
heart and kindly affections.
The supplement of the story is given by one of the confessions of Burke.
He cut the hair off her head when she was still warm. It will be
remembered that he formerly dealt in this commodity, and Mary's was too
long and beautiful to be given to the doctors. It might one day figure as
her own on a lady of rank;--and how little she would know of the fate of
her whom it had adorned, as adorning it! But to what end? Even that of the
poisonous flower of Paphos, which is said to have the most beautiful
petals, and to throw them the soonest away. Within four hours Burke and
Hare took the body to Surgeon's Square. It was then cold enough, but had
not yet got time to assume the stiffness of the dead. When uncovered, a
tall lad who was along with Mr Ferguson, one of Dr Knox's assistants,
expressed surprise and said that he knew the girl, and had been with her a
day or two before. Sharp questions followed as to where and how she had
been got, when Burke satisfied the inquirers--wondrous facility!--that he
had purchased the body from an old woman at the back of the Canongate. Nor
did the story finish here; So struck was Knox with the beauty and fine
proportions of the body of Mary, that he invited an artist to come to the
rooms to see it, for the benefit of his profession; and with the
conservative instinct of an old museum collector, the curious Professor
kept his favourite specimen three months in whisky. No wonder that this
case roused the suspicions of the public against the doctors,--a subject
we will take up in a subsequent chapter. Opinions ran high, and both sides
had their reasons and their arguments, upon all which we shall attempt a
judgment.
Daft Jamie.
The work goes on, with a change of shambles. Some time after the scene in
Constantine Burke's house in Gibb's Close, Burke and Helen M'Dougal
removed from Log's house to that of a relation of theirs of the name of
Broggan. It was never properly ascertained whether this separation was the
consequence of a quarrel between the parties, or whether it was imagined
that another establishment would furnish additional opportunities for
carrying on the trade. The latter opinion seems to have been justified by
their joint operations having undergone no interruption. Broggan's house
was admirably adapted for working the conspiracy, provided the inmates
could be relied on, a condition indispensable where the house consisted of
only one apartment, though with a convenient dark passage into which the
females could retreat as a safeguard to their feelings. If we are
surprised that four individuals could be found in the world to harmonise
in a confederacy for so extraordinary a purpose, we come to be appalled
with wonder and dismay at the apparent facility they found in
conciliating the scruples of those who could have derived but little
reward for their silence. We have seen Constantine Burke and his wife
acting the aiding confidants, and now we see another man and his wife
brought over with apparently little difficulty. We seek for the
explanation of course in the power of money, but this does not allay the
wonder, if it does not rather increase it, as extending the charm of that
agent even beyond what we could ever have dreamed of its influence.