hand, went down, followed by his friends, one of the side stairs to the
stone rampart, by which the jetty is defended on the east. There they
sat down. The sun was throwing a blaze of glory over a sea which repaid
the gift with a liquid splendour scarcely inferior to his of fire; and
the companions of the bird, swirling in the clear air, seemed to be
attracted by the sharp cries of the prisoner; but all its efforts were
vain to gratify its love of liberty and their yearning. It was in the
hands of those who had neither pity for its sufferings, consideration
for the lessons it carried in its structure, nor taste for estimating
its beauties. One of another kind of students might have detected
adaptations in the structure of that creature sufficient to have raised
his thoughts to the great Author of design and the source of all
beauty,--that small and light body, capable of being suspended for a
great length of time in the air by those broad wings, so that, as a bird
of prey, it should watch for its food without the aid of a perch; the
feathers, supplied by an unctuous substance, to enable them to throw off
the water and keep the body dry; the web-feet for swimming; and the long
legs, which it uses as a kind of stay, by turning them towards the head
when it bends the neck, to apply the beak--that beak, too, so admirably
formed--for taking up entire, or perforating the backs of the silly
fishes that gambol too near the surface. Ay, even in these fishes,
which, venturing too far from their natural depths, and becoming amorous
of the sun, and playful in their escapades, he might see the symbol of
man himself, who, when he leaves the paths of prudence, and gets
top-light with pleasure, is ready, in every culmination of his delirium,
to be caught by a waiting retribution. Ah! but our student, who held the
bird, was not incurious--only cold and cruel in his curiosity.
"Hamilton," said he, "that bird could still swim on the surface of that
sea, though deprived of every feather on its body."
"I deny it," replied Hamilton. "It will not swim five minutes,"
"What do you bet?"--- The old watchword.
"Five pounds."
"Done."
And getting Campbell to hold the beak, which the bird was using with all
its vigour, he grasped its legs and wings together by his left hand, and
began to tear from the tender living skin the feathers. Every handful
showed the quivering flesh, and was followed by spouts of blood; nor did
he seem to care--although the more carefully the flaying operation was
performed, the better chance he had of carrying his wager--whether he
brought away with the torn tips portions of the skin. The writhing of
the tortured creature was rather an appeal to his deliberate cruelty,
and the shrill scream only quickened the process. The back finished and
bloody, the belly, snow-white and beautiful, was turned up, the feathers
torn away, the breast laid bare, and one wing after the other stript of
every pinion. Nothing in the shape of feathers, in short, was left,
except the covering of the head, which resisted his fingers.
"There now is Plato's definition of a man personified," said he as he
laughed.
During all this time a lady looked over the parapet. Dewhurst caught her
eye red with anger, but he only laughed the louder.
"Now, Hamilton," said he, "you take the bird, and we mount to the
platform. When I give the sign, fling him in, and we shall see how the
bet goes."
They accordingly mounted, and the lady turning her back, as if she had
been unable to bear longer the sight of so much cold cruelty, directed
her vision towards the west; but a little boy, who was along with her,
seemed to watch the operation.
"Now," cried Dewhurst.
And Hamilton thiew the bird into the sea. The creature, still
vivacious, true to its old instinct, spread out its bare wings in an
attempt to fly, but it was in vain; down it came sinking below the
surface, but rising quickly again to lash, with the bleeding wings, the
water on which it used to swim so lightly and elegantly. The struggle
between the effort to fly and the tendency to sink was continued for
several minutes, its screams bringing closer around it many of its
compeers, who looked as if with pity and amazement on the suffering
victim, known to them now only by the well-known cry of distress.
Meanwhile these curious students of natural history stood looking over
the rail, watch in hand; and the little boy, an important personage in
our story, also intent upon the experiment, cried out two solitary
words, very simple ones too, and yet fraught with a strange import, as
regards consequences, that could not be gathered from them.
"See, ma'."
But the lady to whom they were addressed had still her head turned away.
"Six minutes," cried Dewhurst. "The time is up, and the bird is only
this instant down. I win."
"I admit it," responded Hamilton, evidently disconcerted. "I shall pay
you to-night at Stewart's, at seven o'clock. I got my remittance
yesterday."
"Content," said Dewhurst, "That's the third bet I have gained off you
within a fortnight,"
Hamilton bit his lip and scowled--- an act which only roused against him
the raillery of his comrades, who were now collected in a circle, and
symptoms of anger of a more expressive kind showed themselves.
"You have been at this trade of flaying before," said he, looking
sternly at Dewhurst. "Your father, like the other West Indians, is well
acquainted with the flaying of negroes, and you have been following his
example with the Jamaica lungies. But, by G--d," he added, getting
enraged, "next time we cross the rapiers of a bet, it shall be for ten
times five."
"This instant," answered Dewhurst, on whom the imputations about his
father acted as a fiery stimulant.
"Seek your subject," responded Hamilton.
"You see that lady there?" continued the West Indian. "She has a boy
with her."
"I do."
"The mother of the boy, or not?" continued Dewhurst. "I say she is; and,
in place of fifty, I'll make it a hundred."
"Have you ever seen them before?" asked Hamilton, trying to be calm.
"Never. I know no more of them than you do; and, besides, I give you
your choice of mother, or not mother."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Campbell, as he looked intently at Dewhurst. "Are you
mad, Dewhurst? Has your last triumph blinded you? The woman is too old
by ten years."
Hamilton turned round without saying a word, and drew cautiously near
the lady, whose eyes, as she stood looking at a foreign ship coming in,
were still scornful, and it seemed as if she waited until some gentleman
came up to inform him of the cruel act she had so recently witnessed.
Resisting her fiery glances, he surveyed her calmly, looking by turns at
her and the boy. A slight smile played on his lip in the midst of the
indications of his wrath. One might have read in that expression--
"Not a feature in these two faces in the least similar, and the age is
beyond all mortal doubt. I have the gull-flayer on the hip at last."
And returning to the companions with the same simulated coolness--
"Done for a hundred," he said. "That lady is not the mother of that
boy."
"Agreed," answered Dewhurst, with a look of inward triumph. "How to be
decided?"
"By the lips of the lady herself."
"Agreed."
"Yes," joined Campbell, "if you can get these lips to move. She looks
angry, and now she is moving along probably for home, bequeathing to us
the last look of her scorn. We shall give her time to cool down, and
Cameron and I will then pay our respects to her. We shall get it out of
the boy if she refuse to answer."
It was as Campbell said. The lady with the boy, who held her by the
hand, had begun her return along the jetty. The companions kept walking
behind; and of these, Campbell and Dewhurst fell back a little from the
other two.
"Hark, Campbell," said Dewhurst. "Back me against Cameron for any sum
you can get out of him. I'm sure of my quarry; and," laughing within the
teeth, he added, "I'll gull him again."
"You're ruined, man," whispered his companion. "The woman is evidently
too old, and I am satisfied you will catch some of her wrinkles."
A deeper whisper from Dewhurst conveyed to the ear of his friend--
"I heard the boy call her mother."
"The devil!" exclaimed Campbell in surprise; but, catching himself, "it
might have been grandmother he meant."
"No, no. Children in Scotland use grandma', never ma', to grandmother.
I'm satisfied; and if you are not a fool, take advantage of my "--
"Dishonesty," added Campbell.
"No; all fair with that fellow Hamilton. Besides, all bets assume a
retention of reasons, otherwise there could be no bets. In addition, I
did not assert that I did not hear them address each other."
"That's something," said Campbell. "I do not say it is impossible, or
even very improbable, that she may be the mother; and if you will assure
me, on your honour, of what you heard, I will have a little speculative
peculation on Cameron."
"I can swear; and if I couldn't, do you think I would have bet so high,
as in the event of losing I should be ruined?"
"I'm content," said Campbell. "Ho, there, Cameron! I will back Dewhurst
on the maternity for ten."
"That will just pay Nightingale," replied Cameron. "I accept. Now for
the grand _denouement_. Let us accost the arbitress of our fortunes."
"Not yet," said Hamilton. "Wait till she gets to the lighthouse, where
there are people. It is clear she has not a good opinion of us, and in
this solitary place she might get alarmed."
Hanging back to wait their opportunity, now upon the verge of a decision
which might be attended with disastrous results to some of them, the
whole four appeared absorbed in anxiety. Not a word was spoken; and it
seemed possible that, during these trying minutes, a hint would have
broken up the imprudent and dangerous compact. The terror of the club
was before them, and the false honour which ruled them, in place of
obedience to their fathers, and humanity to dumb creatures, retained the
ascendency. So has it ever been with the worship of false gods: their
exactions have always been in proportion to the folly and credulity of
their votaries. The moment was approaching. The die was to carry
formidable issues. Dark shadows broke in through the resolution to be
brave, as might have been observed in the features of both the
principals. At length Campbell took the lead. They approached the lady,
who at first seemed to shrink from them as monsters.
"We beg pardon," he said. "Be assured, madam, we have not the most
distant intention to offend you. The truth is, that we have a bet among
us as to whether you are the mother of this fine boy. We assure you,
moreover, that it was the sport of betting that sought out the subject,
and the nature of that subject cannot, we presume, be prejudicial either
to your honour or your feelings. While I ask your pardon, allow me to
add that the wager, foolish or not, is to be decided by your answer--yes
or no."
"No."
After pronouncing, with a severe sternness, this monosyllable, she
paused a little; and looking round upon the youths with a seriousness
and dignity that sat upon her so well that they shrunk from her glance,
she added, with a corresponding solemnity--
"Would to God, who sees all things--ay, and punishes all those who are
cruel to the creatures He has formed with feelings suitable to their
natures, and dear to them as ours are to us--that he who bet upon my
being the mother of this boy may be he who tortured the unoffending
bird!"
And, with these words, she departed, leaving the bewildered students
looking at each other, with various emotions. It was, perhaps, fortunate
for Dewhurst that the little sermon, contrary to the practice of the
courts, came after, in place of preceding the condemnation, for he had
been rendered all but insensible by the formidable monosyllable. He saw
there was some mystery overhanging his present position. He doubted,
and he did not doubt the lady; but he heard the boy use the word, and
he took up the impression that he was, by some mistake on his part, to
be punished for the flaying of the bird. The lady's eye, red and angry,
had been fixed upon him, and now, when she was gone, he still saw it.
But there were more lurid lights, playing round certain stern facts
connected with his fortunes. He must pay this £100 on the decision of
her who had burned him with her scorn. There was no relief for him. The
club at the College had no mercy, and he had enraged Hamilton, whose
spirit was relentless. He had been under rebuke from his father, who had
threatened to cut him off; and, worse still, the remnant of the last
yearly remittance was £110 in the Royal Bank, while debts stood against
him in the books of tailors, confectioners, tavern-keepers,
shoemakers--some already in the form of decrees, and one at least in the
advanced stage of a warrant. To sum up all, he was betrothed to Miss
M------- sh, the sister of a writer to the signet, who had already
hinted doubts as the propriety of the marriage. He saw himself, in
short, wrecked on the razor-backed shelving rocks of misery. In his
extremity, he clutched at a floating weed: the woman, the lady, did not
speak the truth. He had ears, and could hear, and he would trust to
them. The boy could not be wrong.
"Campbell," he cried, "dog her home--she lies!" Hamilton and Campbell
burst out into a laugh, but Campbell had been taken aback by the lady's
answer: he had not £10 to pay Cameron, and the fear of the club was
before him, with its stern decree of the brand of caste and rejection by
his associates. Since the moment of the lady's answer, he had been
conscious of obscure doubts as to her truthfulness, clustering round the
suspicion that she might have known, by hearing something, that
Dewhurst, the gull-flayer, was on the side of the maternity, and that
she wanted to punish him--a notion which seemed to be favoured by the
somewhat affected manner of her expressing her little sermon. These
doubts, fluid and wavering, became, as it were, crystallized by
Dewhurst's cry that she was a liar; and, the moment he felt the sharp
angles of the idea, he set off after the lady.
This hope, which was nothing more than despair in hysterics, enabled
Dewhurst to withstand, for a little, the looks of triumph in Hamilton
and Cameron, in spite of their laugh, which still rung in his ears. The
sermon had touched him but little, and if he could have got quit of this
wildly contracted debt, he would likely be the same man again. He did
not, as yet, feel even the dishonour of having taken advantage of the
boy's statement--an act which he had subtlety enough to defend. Give him
only relief from this debt, the fire of the club, the stabbing glances
of Hamilton's eye. At least he was not bound to suffer the personal
expression of his companions' triumph any longer than he could away.
"We will wait the issue of Campbell's inquiry," he said with affected
calmness. "I have a call to make in the Links."
And he was retreating, even as he uttered these words.
"I owe you £5," cried Hamilton, "which, _as a man of honour_, I pay you
to-night at seven o'clock, upon the instant, at Stewart's. I have no
wish to be dragged before the club."
With this barb, touched with wararra poison, or ten times distilled
kakodyle, and a layer of honey over all, Dewhurst hurried away, to make
no call. He was hard to subdue, and a puppy, whose passion it was to
strut, in the perfection of a refined toilette, among fashionable
street-walkers. While he was abroad, his cares rankling within were
overborne by the consciousness of being "in position." The dog's nose is
cold even when his tongue is reeking; and as he walked slowly along, his
exterior showed the proper thermo-metric nonchalance--it was not the
time for a pyrometric measurement within the heart. On his way, he
talked to a Leith merchant, who hailed him; yet he exhibited the
required _retenu_, so expressive of confidence and ease within, and
withal so fashionable. You might have said that he had the heart to wing
a partridge,--to "wing it," a pretty phrase in the mouth of a polite
sportsman, who, if a poacher were to break the bones of his leg, would,
in his own case, think it a little different. Yes, Dewhurst might have
been supposed to be able to "wing a partridge,"--not to "flay a gull."
It was while thus "in position"--not its master, but its slave--that
curvation of the spine of society, which produces so much paralysis and
death--that, when he came to Princes Street, he felt himself constrained
and able to walk up South St. Andrew Street, direct to the door of the
Royal Bank. He even entered; he even drew a draft; he even made that
draft £110, all the money he had there in keeping for so many coming
wants and exigencies; he even presented it to the teller, who knew his
circumstances and his dangers--ay, and his father's anxieties while he
sent the yearly remittance.
"All, Mr. Dewhurst?" said the teller, looking blank at the draft.
"All, sir; I require it all," answered the student, with such a mouthful
of the vowel, that we might write the word _requoire_, and not be far
from the pronunciation.
The teller gave his head a significant shake. If he had had a tail to
shake, and had shaken that tail, it would have been much the same.
Having got the money, he was more than ever under the law of that
proclivity, on the broad line to ruin, on which so many young men take
stations; and still retaining his, he went at the hour of the hot
joints, to dine at the Rainbow, where he met many others, in that
refreshment house, of the same class, who, like himself,
considered--that is, while the money was there--that guineas in the
purse supersede the necessity of having ideas in the head. He took to
such liquid accompaniments of the dinner, as would confirm the
resolution he had formed, of paying at once his debt of honour. And why
not? Was not he of that world whose code of laws draws the legitimate
line of distinction between debts contracted to industrious tradesmen
for the necessaries of life, and those which are the result of whim,
pride, or vindictiveness? All recollections of the flaying of the bird,
and of the lady's adjuration to heaven, had given way to the enthusiasm
of the noble feeling to obey the dictates of that eternal and immutable
code of honour. And by seven o'clock he was at Stewart's, where he found
Hamilton and Cameron waiting for their respective "pounds of flesh."
"Here is the £5," cried Hamilton, as he entered; and, throwing the note
upon the table, "it is for the gull trick."
"And here," responded the West Indian, "is your £100 for the woman
trick."
And he cast from him the bundle of notes, with a grandeur of both honour
and defiance. "But I have a reservation to make. Campbell has not
reported to me the issue of his commission; and if it shall turn out
that the woman retracts, I will reclaim the money."
"And get it too," said the other, laughing sneeringly, as he counted
the notes. "But here comes Campbell."
"Campbell," cried Cameron, as his debtor entered, "I want my £10 to pay
Nightingale."
"Ask Dewhurst," said Campbell. "I have been cheated by him. He told me a
lie. The woman speaks true, and I shall be revenged."
"I have nothing to do with Dewhurst," answered Cameron. "You are my
debtor; and if I don't get the money to-night--you know my lodgings--the
club will decide upon it to-morrow."
And, throwing a withering look upon his old friend--a word now changed
for, and lost in that expressive vocable, debtor--he hurried out,
followed by Hamilton, who had both his money and his revenge, and wished
to be beyond the reach of a recall.
Left to themselves, the two remaining friends of the hour before, but
now no longer friends, looked sternly at each other. The one considered
himself duped; the other was burning under the imputation of being a
cheat and a liar.
"Oh I don't retract," said Campbell, with increased fierceness. "It was
upon the faith of your word that I ventured the bet against my own
convictions. I have traced the lady to Great King Street, where she
resides, as the aunt of the boy; and I am satisfied that, in a case
where the boy's mother is alive, and now in her own house, he, of the
age he is, never could have used the word mother or mamma, or any word
of that import, to his father's sister. All power and energies are
comparative. This £10 cracks the spine of my fortune as effectually as
ten times the amount. I have not the money, and know no more where to
find it than I do to get hold of the philosopher's stone. I repeat I
have been cheated, and I demand of you the money."
"Which you shall never get," replied Dewhurst. "I can swear that I
heard the words. They thrill on my ears now; and the best proof of my
conviction is, that I am myself ruined. Yes," and he began to roll his
eyes about, as the terrors of his situation came rushing upon him, on
the wake of the now departing effects of the Rainbow wine--"Yes, the
swell, the fop, the leader of the college _ton_, whose coat came from
the artistic study of Willis, whose necktie could raise a _furore_,
whose glove, without a wrinkle, would condescend only to be touched by
friendship on the tip of the finger, is now at the mercy of any one of
twenty sleasy dogs, who can tell the sheriff I owe them money. Money!
why, I have only fifteen pounds in the wide world, and I must pay that
to my landlady."
As he uttered these last words, the door opened, and there stood before
him a man with a blue coat, surmounted by a red collar. He held a paper
in his hand; his demeanour was deferential and exuberantly polite.
"That sum you have mentioned, sir," he said, looking to the student,
"with £10 added, will save you and me much trouble. The debt to Mr. Reid
is £25; and here is a certain paper which gives me the power to do an
unpolite thing. You comprehend? I am an advocate for painless
operations."
"Will you accept the £15?" said Dewhurst, now scarcely able to
articulate.
"Yes, if this gentleman here, who is, I presume, your friend, will
kindly add the £10. The expenses may stand."
Campbell could only grin at this strange conversation.
"Unwilling?" continued the messenger. "Ah, I see. It is strange that
when I devote myself to a gentleman, his friends fly away. This is my
misfortune. Well, there is no help for it. We must take a walk to the
prison," addressing himself to his debtor. "You are a gentleman, and I
shall be your servant in livery."
Dewhurst braced himself with a violent effort, like a spasm, and took
his hat.
"Give me the £10," said Campbell. "It will make no difference now. There
are no degrees in despair."
"I must take care of my master's money," said the officer, with an
attempt at a smile; and without going the full length of imitating that
most philanthropic of all executors of the law, Simpson, who patted his
victims on the back while he adjusted the rope, he added, "And now, sir,
I am at your humble service."
In a very short time after, the strange events of that day were
terminated by the young man being placed in the debtor's prison of the
Calton. Like other jail birds, he at first shunned his brethren in
misfortune, fleeing to his room, and shrouding himself in solitude and
partial darkness. The change from a life of gaiety, if not dissipation,
to the experiences of prison squalor, had come upon him without
preparation, if indeed preparation for evil ever diminishes or much
ameliorates the inevitable effects of the visitation. Unfortunates
exhibit wonderful diversities in their manifestations. Dewhurst became
dejected, broken in spirits, sad, and remorseful. He scarcely stirred
from the bed on which he had thrown himself when he entered; and his
mind became a theatre where strange plays were acted, and strange
personages performed strange parts, under the direction of stage
managers over whom he had no control. Though some unhappy predecessor in
the same cell had scribbled on the wall,
"A prison is a cannie place,
Though viewed with reprobation,
Where cheats and thieves, and scants o' grace,
Find time for cogitation,"