the widow of a porter named Ostler, who lived in the Grassmarket, and who
had died shortly before. She gained her livelihood in an industrious, if
not laborious way, mainly by washing and dressing, eking it out by any
desultory work she could find, sometimes in the country during harvest.
She had been accustomed to visit Broggan's house in her vocation of
washerwoman, and was well known to the neighbours, both from her long
residence among them, and her frequent visits to the mangle at that time
kept by a woman of the name of Mrs Law. One day this woman was seen to
enter Broggan's house at a time when Burke was known to be there, and some
of the neighbours noticed, though without paying any particular attention
to the circumstance, that some time after she entered, there came from the
apartment sounds of jollity, as if the inmates had got merry under the
influence of drink. Burke himself exerted his musical powers, and Mrs
Ostler, not to be behind, favoured the happy party with her favourite
song--"Home, sweet home," which she sung in a wavering treble, not without
sweetness. The symposium was no further noticed, nor was it exactly known
who formed the party, but that Broggan's wife was in the house at the
time, may be inferred from the fact, afterwards ascertained, that about
that period she lay in of a child. From that hour Mrs Ostler was never
seen. She was despatched some time after the singing of "Home, sweet
home," and carried to Surgeon's Square the same evening. The ancients were
fond of the subject of the shortness, the brittleness, and the vanity of
human life. Homer has his soap-bubble, Plutarch his point of time, Plato
his peregrination, and so forth, and the moderns imitate them. Yet, at the
worst, man has generally made some little sign even at the death of a
beggar. It was reserved for Portsburgh to be the place where life
disappeared like a snuffed-out candle in mid-day--the hand unseen, the
light scarcely missed--even the material which supplied it gone as if by
magic. If Mrs Ostler was soon missed, the speculation died away under the
ordinary supposition, that she had fallen into some water; and there was
an end.
The first murder after the change of residence was a mere prelude to an
act--_heu! heu! vita vehementer effera et barbara!_--altogether Cyclopic.
There lived in Edinburgh in that year--1828--an imbecile of the name of
James Wilson, or, as he was called, "Daft Jamie." His residence was in
Stevenson's Close, Canongate; but, with the exception of the night-time,
he was seldom at home, being, like most of his class, a great wanderer;
nor were his wanderings limited to the Old Town--he was seen everywhere,
and seemed never to be weary. Though evidently deficient in intellect, he
was strong and healthy in the body, going in all weathers bareheaded and
barefooted, without injury to his constitution, and without a murmur of
discontent. Never was there a more happy creature of the kind than Daft
Jamie; for while, as we too well know, those thus afflicted were at that
time, when they were less than now under the public care, often the
objects of hatred, more often of sport and play to the young of the lower
classes, Jamie was a universal favourite. It was not that the inhabitants
of Edinburgh merely pitied him--they really liked him. Perfectly harmless
and inoffensive, and not uncomely in his appearance, he possessed great
kindliness of heart; and to all who had occasion to be on the streets of
Edinburgh, whether early or late, he was familiar, always dressed much in
the same way,--the good-humoured, winning smile never absent from his full
round face,--always ready to salute by a peculiar manner of taking the
front lock of his hair between his finger and thumb, nodding quickly,
bowing and smiling. We can say, from experience, that there was no
resisting Jamie's smile and the twitch of the lock, and you felt this if
you had a penny in your pocket, which was all the more readily given that
he never seemed to wish for it. Nay, he sometimes rejected money, saying
that he didn't need it, for that he had "the feck o' half-a-croon on him."
This _bonhommie_ was perfectly genuine, not more the result of the
universal favour with which he was regarded than of heartfelt kindliness,
and a robust health independent of all weathers.
Another peculiarity consisted in the importance he attached to his brass
snuff-box and spoon, which he always carried about with him, and used with
great economy, and with so much of selection, that while many might be
favoured with the smile and the bow, it was only a very select few,
principally favourites among the young collegians, to whom he condescended
to offer a spoonful of his rapee. Though undoubtedly imbecile, and
incapable of any continuous mental effort, he possessed a small portion of
intellect, never exhibiting any of the vagaries of his class. He kept up a
correct knowledge of the days of the month and week,--a species of
learning of which he was very proud,--and even went far beyond this in a
certain facility he had in calculating the day on which any feast or
commemoration would take place; so that to the students and boys he served
as a kind of walking calendar. He had musical talents too, so well
appreciated, that he was often called upon to entertain his juvenile
acquaintances with a song, which he executed in tolerable style. In
addition to all these recommendations, he was scrupulously clean in his
person, changing his linen, it was said, three times a week; and his hands
and feet, though always uncovered, appearing as having been carefully
washed before he came out.
It was stated at the time that almost all the naturals then recollected on
the streets of the city had met with violent or untimely deaths. There was
Bobby Auld, who may yet be remembered as being a great crony of Jamie's.
Bobby was killed by the kick of an ass, and fell into the hands of Dr
Monro. Some others were mentioned. Nothing was more curious than to
witness a forgathering between these two. They talked about affairs in
general with the greatest complacency, not hesitating to criticise each
other's knowledge or perspicacity--even venturing the word _fool_ when the
detected ignorance or error warranted the liberty. It is narrated that on
one occasion Bobby and Jamie met accidentally in the neighbourhood of the
Grassmarket. "It's a cauld day, Bobby." "Ay is't, Jamie. Wudna we be the
better o' a dram? hae ye ony siller, man? I hae tippence." "And I hae
fourpence," says Jamie. "Ou, man," rejoins the other, "that'll get a haill
mutchkin." And away they went to a neighbouring public-house, where the
money having been first shewn as a necessary security, the whisky was
demanded with great dignity, and placed before them But before either of
them had tasted the liquor, "Lord, man," said Bobby, "did ye see the twa
dougs fechtin' on the street? They're no dune yet; I hear their growling
and their biting." "No," replied Jamie, "I saw nae dougs fechtin'." "It's
a grand sight, though," continued the other natural. "It has lasted
half-an-hour, an's weel worth seeing. I wud advise ye to gang to the door
and see it, for ye'll maybe never see the like again, in this world at
least." Then Jamie proceeded unsuspiciously, for he had no guile or
cunning about him, to see this wonderful dog-fight; but speedily returned
with the information that he could see nothing of the kind. "They'll just
be dune, then," coolly observed Bobby. "But what's come o' the whisky?"
said Jamie, as he opened wide his eyes on the stoup standing empty. "Ou,
man," was the treacherous reply, "ye see I couldna wait." Upon Jamie's
being questioned how he had revenged this foul play, his answer was in
perfect character,--"Ou, what could ye say to puir Bobby? He's daft, ye
ken."
Though much inferior to his crony in trickery--of which, indeed, he had
none--Jamie was much his superior in intellect and knowledge. His father
is said to have been a decent religious man, who took him regularly to a
place of worship in the Old Town on the Sabbaths; and Jamie, perhaps from
habit, continued as regularly to keep up the practice. On one occasion,
when examined by a worthy elder of the congregation, it was said that
Jamie not only shewed far more knowledge than could have been expected
from him, but turned the tables upon his querist, putting considerably
more than the old theological questions of the _enfants terribles_, which
no one has been able to answer any more than our learned elder. And then,
to crown all, there was the parting valediction, "If ye wud like ony mair
information, Mr ----, ye ken brawly whaur to fin' me."
One morning in the month of September or early in October of the same
year, Jamie was, as usual, wandering about in the Grassmarket, giving his
bow and twitch of the lock to any superior person he met; for he well knew
the differences of caste, considering himself far above the lowest, if not
even up to the line which he drew between the giving and the withholding
of the brass box and the spoon. Kindly affected towards his mother,--to
whose love in return he was indebted for the clean way in which he was
kept, and many attentions, for which, by a wise providence, the natural
comes in, as if for compensation, to the exclusion of his brothers and
sisters,--Jamie was looking for his parent. At this time he was observed
by Mrs Hare,[9] who, going up as she had often done before, asked him who
he was looking for. "My mither," was the answer; "hae ye seen her ony
gait?" "Ay," said the woman, "she's in my house." And with this
temptation she induced him to go with her. They were soon in the old
den--Log's lodgings--where Hare himself was crouching for prey. Behold
Jamie introduced to the court with the old honour--the fatal wink! There
left with one who would take special care that he would not escape, the
woman, as a provider of another kind--for she catered for life as well as
death--went to Mr Rymer's shop to get some butter, and it chanced that
Burke was at the time standing beside the counter. She then asked her
friend, who, as we have said, was now in other lodgings, for a dram, which
was accordingly handed to her by Mr Rymer, and when she was drinking it
off, she stamped with her foot upon Burke's, as if to tell him that he was
wanted. He knew instantly the meaning of the sign, having previously seen
her leading Jamie, to use his own words, as a dumb lamb to the slaughter.
The moment she departed, he followed; and when he entered, he was accosted
by Mrs Hare with the words, "You have come too late; the whisky is all
done." At this time, Jamie was sitting in the front room, with the cup
(used for a glass) in his hand, smiling and talking, and every now and
then looking round for the entry of his mother. Hare was alongside of him,
and Burke took a seat opposite. It was proposed to send for another
half-mutchkin, and this having been procured, they invited Jamie to the
fatal back room with the window looking out on the dead wall.
On getting him into the apartment, they advised him to sit down on the
front of the bed, to which he assented; and Hare's wife, after getting
some of the spirits, went out, and locked the door quietly, and put the
key in through an opening below it, supposed to have been made for the
purpose. Now was the time to tempt Jamie with the whisky; but to their
utter disappointment, they found that he would drink no more than he had
done, and that scarcely amounted to a glass. It was his mother he wanted,
and for her he repeatedly called, in those accents of yearning which,
though coming from a youth, had, in perfect consistency with his nature,
all the pathos of infantine simplicity. Alas! there was no mother there.
Even the woman, who might have understood the yearning,--for she was
herself a mother,--had locked him in with demons. The two men were driven
out of their reckoning by Jamie's refusal to drink, and were necessitated
to manoeuvre; but in any view, they had a young and strong individual to
deal with, and they knew, from prior experience, that unless aided by the
effects of drink, they must lay their account with a desperate resistance.
No effort was left untried to get Jamie to take more whisky, but still
with the unsuccessful result. As yet kindly to him, he did not suspect
them; and, at length, so far overcome even by the small quantity of
spirits he had drunk, he lay down on the bed and fell asleep. But this
state, which even in the most wicked has the appearance of innocence, was
to be no guard against those to whom the old proverb so well
applied,--"_Somnus absit ab oculis_." Yes, they required to be awake, for
they had _work_ to do. They must kill a young, full-blooded youth, without
the use of a lethal weapon, and without leaving a mark. They must wrestle
to do this against the piteous appeals of innocence from one God-stricken,
and who had never injured human being. They must do it with the ferocity
of the striped lord of the jungle; they must do it without the help or the
excuse of revenge; they must do it with the ingenuity of an artist.
Burke, who was up to the pitch of mammon's inspiration, and all the more
that he had been fretted by being so far foiled by an idiot, sat watching
his opportunity. The two were silent, only occasionally looking at each
other, and then at Jamie, as he lay still sleeping on the bed. At length
Burke said, "Shall we do it now?" to which Hare replied, "He is too strong
for you yet." Burke accordingly waited a little, as probably misgivings
crossed him that the conflict would be too furious to risk, and the noise
might attract attention at that hour. Jamie got some more moments to live.
But this could not continue long; nor did it. Burke, become hot with
impatience, suddenly threw himself upon the still sleeping simpleton, and,
clutching him by the neck, attempted to strangle him. The onset roused
the instinctive energies of the lad, who had sense enough to see his
danger. The fear which in other circumstances would have made him run to
avoid his enemies, seemed to pass into courage, and nerve him to sudden
desperation. He clutched his assaulter with great force--his eye darted
forth his fury--the mantling foam stood upon his lips like a lather--and
throwing off the tiger with a bound, he sprang to the floor, stood erect,
and awaited another onset. Nor did he wait long. Burke, in his turn,
roused by opposition to the height of his wrath, again seized him, with
the intention to throw him; but Jamie had the greater strength, and,
besides, he fought for his life, so that he was again likely to become the
master, when Burke cried out to Hare, who had hitherto kept back, as if
afraid to enter into the struggle, to come forward and assist him,
otherwise "I will stick a knife in you." The threat had its effect, for
Hare, rushing forward at the very moment when Jamie was mastering his
enemy, tripped up his heels, and laid him on his back on the floor. Not a
moment was now to be lost, as the continued thumping and knocking against
the furniture and the screams of the lad might reach the Close, and they
must do their work, as we have said, without a knife, (which would have
quickly brought matters to a termination,) otherwise no price at Surgeon's
Square. The next moment saw Burke extended upon the body of the still
struggling simpleton, while Hare, at his head, was engaged in the old
process of holding the nose and mouth. Even after this, it was still a
struggle of considerable duration. The men were sweating and breathing
loud with their mere efforts to kill, and Burke, roused to fury, was often
thrown off, only to spring again with greater ferocity. By and by, Jamie's
struggles got weaker and weaker--relapses into stillness--wild upraisings
again--spasmodic jerks of effort--those indescribable sounds which the
doctors say attend cynanche--all receding gradually to the last sign. Nor
did they quit their grasp till they were pretty sure they had effected
their purpose. They hung over him--listened for breathings--made surety
surer. Daft Jamie is dead!
This was beyond all question the most imprudent of all the acts of these
terrible beings. Without supposing them mad, it is hardly possible to
imagine that they could place before young men of the College, who were in
the daily habit of conversing with their victim, a body which could
scarcely fail to be recognised upon the instant. Yet on that very day it
was put into a chest and conveyed to the rooms, where, _after
examination_, it brought the price of £10. Burke, when he rose up after
being satisfied that Jamie was dead, rifled his pockets, and took out the
small box and the spoon, giving the spoon to Hare, and keeping the box to
himself. The clothes he gave to his brothers children, who, when the
bundle was unbound, fell to fighting about them; connected with which
part of an atrocity which the paper will scarcely bear the impression of,
is the curious fact that a baker some time after recognised upon one of
Constantine Burke's sons a pair of trousers he had not long before given
to Jamie. But here, again, though the mother of the lad, distracted by his
sudden disappearance, ran about searching and inquiring everywhere for her
poor boy, and though it was circulated that one of Dr Knox's students had
affirmed that he saw Jamie on the dissecting-table, no suspicion of the
manner in which he had been disposed of was ever hinted, till the final
discovery, which arose out of another case. Yet it is certain that even
before this event there had begun to move an under-current of uneasiness
in the public mind, and even some dark hints appeared in the public
prints; not that any of these pointed to anything of a defined character,
but that they gradually gave rise to a suspicion that there was some great
secret to be unfolded--what, no one could tell, no one even surmise--which
would startle the public ear, and lay open some terrible conspiracy.
Theories flew about in various guises, all as dark as they were
ridiculous. Some said that there existed somewhere in the city a secret
association of men, bound together by a fearful oath to avenge fancied
wrongs by a crusade against society, and that the members prowled about at
night for their victims, which they immolated amidst oaths and curses.
Others, still more wild, whispered that the missing individuals were
slaughtered and eaten by a gang of famished wretches, who having once
tasted human flesh, got keen upon the zest. Sawney Bean and Christie of
the Cleik rose up again, and became what they had been in olden times, the
bugbears of grown children. And, however ridiculous all these fancies
might appear after the disclosure of the true secret, it cannot be denied
that even sensible people, who looked sharply into human nature, and were
not utterly sceptical of the old legends, might, without the charge of
being fanciful, be led into thoughts which they would otherwise have been
ashamed of. The fact that so many individuals, old and young, had
disappeared within so short a time, without a trace being left, and in
many cases with their clothes lying unclaimed, remained to be accounted
for, and there was no experience to guide, and no theory of human nature
to explain. After all, was it possible that any supposition could
transcend, yea, come up to the reality?
The Brisk Little Old Woman.
It has been stated that Burke went to live in the house occupied by the
man called Broggan. This house, after Broggan's departure, continued to be
possessed by the lodger and his paramour. In a land to the eastward of
that occupied by Hare in Tanner's Close, you reached it after descending a
common stair, and turning to the right, where a dark passage conducted to
several rooms, at the end, and at right angles with which passage, there
was a trance leading solely to Burke's room, and which could be closed by
a door, so as to make it altogether secluded from the main entry. The room
was a very small place, more like a cellar than the dwelling of a human
being. A crazy chair stood by the fireplace; old shoes and implements for
shoemaking lay scattered on the floor; a cupboard against the wall held a
few plates and bowls; and two beds, coarse wooden frames without posts or
curtains, were filled with old straw and rags; so that of the money which
the parties had received no part had ever been devoted to any other
purpose than meat and drink, after allowing for the expense of the
transitory effort on the part of the women to appear better dressed.
On the morning of a certain day of December, Burke chances again to be in
the shop of Mr Rymer, where he saw a poor beggar woman asking for alms,
whose brogue revealed that she was one of his country-women. The old
story, you will say. Yes, alas! the old story, but with a difference. She
would be garrulous--are not all poor people so?--yet the good heart admits
that there is some cause for garrulity where there are wants to supply and
no one willing to lend an ear. She would tell Burke, who had accosted her
with the old accents of sympathy, that she had come over to Scotland to
seek for her son. So straightway the sympathiser's name becomes Docherty,
and he would be glad to shew kindness to his country-woman, whom he
accordingly invited to his house. The proposal was accepted on the
instant, and, Burke leading the way, they proceeded to this asylum, which
had so miraculously come in the way of one who had no place she could call
a home upon earth. On their arrival, the old play begins. Burke sets
before her a breakfast, and, having left Helen M'Dougal to attend to her
wants, he went straightway to find his associate, whom he informed that he
had got "a shot in the house," a piece of information always welcome to
that fearful man. Meanwhile Helen M'Dougal performed her part. At the very
first appearance of the poor stranger she knew the fate that awaited her,
and yet she set her to work in the cleaning of the house--a duty which the
woman would cheerfully undertake out of pure gratitude to those who had
thus generously taken in the weary wanderer and filled her empty stomach,
yea, promised her harbourage for a time.
Hours passed, during which, in the absence of Burke, who would appear in
due time, the two females were feminine, for they were engaged in acts
which, as the natural work of their instincts, constitute so far the
difference between the sexes; nor was the friendship which these acts were
calculated to cement and strengthen to be weakened, in the estimation of
the guest, by the arrival, in the evening, of Burke and Hare, and the
latter's wife--a jolly crew, who could render compatible, again as so
often before, the orgies of a wild mirth with the foreseen doom of the one
round whom these orgies were celebrated. When these parties entered, there
were in the house a person of the name of Gray and his wife, who had been
for some time lodgers with Burke. It was necessary that these persons, who
could not be trusted, should not sleep there that night, and Burke
accordingly went out to seek lodgings for them, whereupon, at a certain
hour, they departed, taking with them some suspicion that their banishment
from their quarters did not quadrate with the excuse that a wandering
beggar, albeit represented as a relative, should take their place, if
they had not some other grounds, derived from particular observations, to
lead them to a thought which was destined to be the original spark to
raise into conflagration a long collected mass of rottenness.