MR. MACROCODILE.
On finding myself a captive in this gloomy old prison, and in the
custody of those grim and grey-haired Celtic _gens-d'armes_, scarcely
one of whom could speak (as I have said) any language, save their
native gaelic, I was animated by rage and indignation, and made such
a noise, that the surly corporal of the guard, old John Dhu, a
warlike remnant of the Black Watch, who once, in the Parliament
Square, clove a man to the teeth with his Lochaber axe, threatened,
in his best English, to gag me with a drumstick, and get an order
from the captain of the Tolbooth to put me in the water-hole.
This was the lowest dungeon of that ancient prison-house; and though
hourly tenanted by the refuse of society, who were gleaned up in the
streets, it was a dark, wet vault, arched with stone, and so gloomy
that its name alone inspired terror. This threat effectually
silenced me; so gulping down my wrath, I resolved to wait till
morning, when I was sure that, being innocent of all crime or error,
save proving the thickness of the caput of Macfarisee, I should at
least be set at liberty.
Another night of absence from, my anxious mother's home! Boylike, I
could scarcely refrain from tears; but tears, like entreaties, were
lost alike on Corporal Dhu.
I upbraided, in my heart, Macfarisee as the author of my recent
misfortunes, by having excited my just indignation when seeking to
bribe and suborn me for his own avaricious and revengeful purposes.
How I passed the night, I do not remember, whether sleeping or
waking; but when St. Giles's bell rang the hour of nine, with other
prisoners, who had been arrested on suspicion of having been engaged
in the riot of the past day, or in the assault on the Provost's
house, I was conducted by the guard, with their bayonets fixed, to
the presence--not of the magistrates, but of the City
Chamberlain--who, in those strange times, possessed a power and a
perquisite that will scarcely be recognized or understood now.
He received a fee--some ten or fifteen shillings--for each boy whom
he sent into his Majesty's sea-service, and thus every unfortunate
urchin whom the guard could glean up after dark, whether innocent or
guilty of crime mattered not, stood a very good chance of being sent
off to see "the mysteries of the great deep," with a
cat-o'-nine-tails at his back by way of an appetiser. In this way,
during the early part of the last war, the chamberlain of his
Majesty's ancient capital of Scotland realized a pretty round sum
yearly. In Aberdeen, this system of kidnapping was carried to a
still more atrocious extent by the magistrates, who sold the boys of
the city as slaves to the Dutch and Spaniards.
What mattered it, though many a mother's heart was wrung--perhaps
broken--by the sudden and unaccountable disappearance of a
dearly-loved son; or that a fond father found the hope of his future
years--his years of old age and helplessness--taken from him, if ten
shillings or so were put into the pocket of the douce, pious, and
church-going city chamberlain? Yet such enormities were practised in
the capital of a country where once no man brooked a wrong, without
appealing to the sword and dagger.
We were conducted into a large panelled room, of antique aspect,
opening off one of the great stone staircases of the Royal Exchange.
There I was enclosed in a species of bar, with three or four other
boys, Corporal Dhu and another grim city guardsman, with his fixed
bayonet and long musket, keeping watch over us; and then, to my
dismay, I found myself before Mr. Macrocodile, and one or two other
men of similarly ascetic aspect,--
"Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors,--
My very noble and approved good masters.
He was the bosom friend of Macfarisee; for years they had mixed their
prayers and their whiskey-punch together, and wept in public over the
sinfulness of this stiffnecked generation. He was one of the chief
canters in the Reverend Mr. Pawkie's synagogue; and I knew that he
remembered bitterly the affair of his wig, for his red ferret-eyes
glared like two living coals when he saw me; and, during the
discussion of one or two petty cases, in which boys were accused of
breaking street-lamps, or pelting the city guard--cases which he
heard and dismissed with, an air of vast magisterial importance,
mixed with no small amount of the cant and slang used in the inferior
departments of office, when power is wielded by a parvenu.
Just before my "case" was to be heard, as the devil would have it,
Macfarisee entered the court, and gave me (though endeavouring to
conceal it under his last-will-and-testament expression) a glance
full of triumph and malice, to which I replied by one of hatred and
defiance. The ruling elder seemed very pale; one of his eyes bore a
few rainbow hues; he had a long piece of black plaster on the bridge
of his nose, and another on his head, and none of these accessions
tended in any way to improve his general appearance.
"Oliver Ellis!" exclaimed a clerk, referring to a paper.
I looked up. Macrocodile and Macfarisee--the Minos and Rhadamanthus,
who were to loose or bind, to condemn or pardon--were ominously
whispering together; and I felt that in such hands my chance of the
latter was remarkably slender indeed; but pride inspired me to put a
bold front on the affair.
"Of what am I accused?" I demanded.
"Read the indictment," said Mr. Macrocodile.
"Being found in the square near the Provost's house, when it was
assaulted by a mob of villains, last night, refusing to state what
was your business there, and maltreating and abusing the soldiers of
the city guard when they attempted to take you, the said Oliver
Ellis, into custody," snuffled the clerk, laying down the indictment,
and resuming his pen.
"They had no right to stop or molest me; the streets are as free to
me as to them."
"After dark?" growled Macrocodile, knitting his brows.
"At all hours," said I stoutly.
"You are a contumacious young dog! Do you know where you are, sir?"
he thundered forth; "but we shall teach you to respect the law."
"Hush, my worthy friend," whined Mr. Macfarisee; "remember, there is
a Power who chastens those whom He loves; and in His name, let us
chasten this wayward one--yea, verily! yea, verily!"
"You are a couple of hypocritical rascals," said I, burning with
rage, "and have no right to meddle in my affairs."
"Ay--ay, indeed! we shall soon see that," replied Macrocodile, with a
malicious grin.
"He was seen among the rioters who were fired on by the troops,
yesterday," said a fat city officer, officiously.
"Are ye sure of that, Archy?"
"I'll take my solemn affidavit of it!"
"Then put him in the stocks at the Tron," suggested Macfarisee.
"Yea,--the stocks, where a better man sat."
"Who?" asked Macrocodile.
"The Prophet Jeremiah."
"What! in the stocks at the Tron Kirk?" exclaimed the other, with
astonishment.
"No;--for shame, Macrocodile; the prophet sat in the jougs, at the
high-gate of Benjamin."
"Then it is too great an honour to put this young rogue in the
stocks. By George, I'll pack him off to sea!" he exclaimed, as if it
was a sudden and not a common idea. "Where is Mr. Cranky, the
lieutenant of the _Tartar_ tender? Clerk,--write--Oliver Ellis, sent
to sea, by order of the magistrates of Edinburgh, for riotous and
disorderly behaviour in the streets of the city, on the 4th day of
June--may the Lord direct him to wiser and better ways--and enter my
fee opposite his name. Corporal Dhu, march this loon with the others
to Leith, and hand them over as volunteers to the lieutenant of the
press-gang. Take the back-way, for fear of a rescue. Officer, clear
the court!"
Expostulation was vain. I was seized by the collar, a bare bayonet
was placed at my throat, while my hands were tied by a cord, and I
was dragged out of the room. Then I saw the last of old Macrocodile,
his powdered wig, and his wickedness; and the last, too, of
Macfarisee, whose eyes, full of triumphant malice, glared like two
bits of grey glass with a light behind them.
To avoid the streets, where considerable excitement yet prevailed,
and where strong patrols of the 2nd Dragoon Guards were passing to
and fro, they hurried me down a dark stair, at the back of the City
Chambers, so dark, that, even now, lamps are burned there by day as
well as by night; thence, by a sequestered alley, named Mary King's
Close, and under the arches of the North Bridge. There, with three
other boys, poor little ragamuffins, who wept bitterly, I was thrust
into a hackney coach. A city guardsman, with his bayonet, mounted
beside the driver. Corporal John Dhu got up behind; and thus
escorted, we were driven off to Leith at a furious rate.
I was choking with mingled emotions!
Pride and just indignation struggled with grief, at the prospect of a
long separation from my mother and sister, and a terror of and
repugnance for the fate upon which I seemed to be hurried so rapidly.