her own eye, crying out occasionally, as she glanced about,
"Poor Charlie in a dungeon!" and again, a few minutes after, when
puffing at the fire with the bellows,
"No fire for dear Charlie; all dark and dismal!"
And then, running for the little paper packet with the cheese and bread,
and setting it down,
"But he'll see the sun to-morrow, and will sleep in his own bed
to-morrow night too; that he shall. Now eat, mother, for you will be
hungry; and see you this!" as she took from her pocket a very tiny
bottle, which would hold somewhere about a glass.
"Take that," filling out a little whisky.
"Oh dear, dear bairn, where learnt ye a' that witchery?" said the
mother, looking at her.
But the sly look, sometimes without a trace of laughter in her face, was
the only answer.
And now they are stretched in bed in each other's arms; but it was a
restless night for both. And how different the manifestations of the
restlessness! The groans of the elder for the fate of her only boy, now
suspended on the scales of justice--one branch of the balance to be lopt
off by Nemesis, and the other left with a noose in the string whereon to
hang that erring, yet still beloved son; hysterical laughs from Jeannie
in her dreams, as she saw herself undo the kench, and Charlie let out,
clapping his hands, and praying too, and kissing Jeannie, and other
fantastic tricks of fancy in her own domain, unburdened with heavy clay
which soils and presses upon her wings and binds her to earth, and to
these monstrous likenesses of things, which she says are all a lying
nature under the bonds of a blind fate, from where she cannot get free,
even though she screams of murder and oppression and cruelty, and all
the ills that earth-born flesh inherits from the first man.
Yet, for all these deductions from the sleep they needed, Jeannie was up
in the morning early, infusing tea for herself and mother, muttering, as
she whisked about,
"No breakfast for him made by me, who love him so dearly; but in this
very house, ay, this night, he will have supper; and such a supper!"
In the midst of these scenes in the little room, a knock came to the
door. It was a policeman, to say that she and her mother must be up to
the office by ten.
"And shall we not?" said Jeannie, laughing; "wouldn't I have been there
at any rate?"
Then, a little after, came the stern Henderson, still ignorant of who
robbed him. Mrs. S--th got up trembling, and looking at him with terror,
so dark he appeared.
"Where is Charles?" he said.
"We don't know," said Jeannie, turning a side-glance at her mother. It
was true she hated her uncle mortally, for the reason that, though he
was to an extent generous to them, he was harsh too, and left them often
poorly off, when from his wealth, which he concealed, he might have made
them happy; and then how could they help the conduct of the son whose
earnings ought to have relieved the uncle of even his small advances?
But though Jeannie hated the curmudgeon, who was, if he could, to hang
her brother--worth to her all the world and a bit of heaven--the mother
saw some change in the girl's conduct towards her uncle. Though pure as
snow, she flew to him and hugged him with the art of one of the denizens
of rougedom, and kissed him, and all the time was acting some by-play
with her nimble fingers.
"Where is your box, you naughty uncle? Doesn't my mother like her eyes
opened in the morning? Ah, here it is."
And getting the box, she carried it to her mother, who was still more
surprised; for she never had got a pinch from Mr. Henderson nor any one,
though she sometimes, for her breathing, took a draught of a pipe at
night.
"It is empty, you witch," cried Henderson.
"Ah! then, my mother will not get her eyes opened." And she returned it
into his pocket with these said subtle fingers.
The mother got dressed, and took a cup of Jeannie's tea, and in a few
minutes they were all on their way to the police office. They found
Captain Stewart in his room, and along with him the procurator-fiscal.
"Come away, Mr. Henderson; this is a bad business," said Stewart.
"The villain!" cried Henderson; "I hope he will hang for it."
"Ay, if guilty though, only," replied the captain.
"Would you know the man?" said the fiscal.
"No, he had a napkin over his face; but I could guess something from his
size and voice."
"He admits the robbery," said Stewart; "but he has an absurd
qualification about a frolic, which yet, I am bound to say, is supported
by his accomplices."
"Then the money, five pounds, has not been got," said the fiscal. "This
is a great want; for without it, I don't see what we can make of the
case."
"Money here or money there, I've lost it anyhow; and if he isn't hanged,
I'll not be pleased."
"Was there any but one man engaged in the affair?"
"Just one, and plenty."
"He had a gun?"
"Yes."
"Would you know it?"
"No. I was, to say the truth, too frightened to examine the instrument
that was to shoot me."
"Then we have nothing but the admission and the testimony of the
accomplices, who say it was a frolic," said Stewart.
"No frolic to me," cried Henderson. "Why then didn't they return the
money?"
"They say they called and ran after you, and that you would not wait to
get it back."
"Then why didn't they produce it to you?" said Henderson. "The money is
appropriated."
"A circumstance," said the fiscal, "in itself sufficient to rebut the
frolic. Yes, the strength of the case is there."
"So I thought," growled the man.
"You wasn't in liquor?"
"No."
"Are you ever?"
"I don't deny that in town I take a glass, but seldom so much as to
affect my walking; never so much as make me dream I was robbed of money,
and that too money gone from my pocket."
"Where do you carry your money?"
"In my waistcoat pocket. Sometimes I have carried a valuable bill home
in my snuff-mull, when it was empty by chance."
"Where had you the five pounds?"
"I am not sure, but I think in my left waistcoat pocket."
"And you gave it on demand? It was not rifled from you?"
"I thrust it into the villain's hand, and ran."
"Well, we must confront you with the supposed robber," said the captain.
"But you seem to be in choler, and I caution you against a precipitate
judgment. You may naturally think the admission of the young men enough,
and that may make you see what perhaps may not be to be seen. I confess
the admission of _three_ to be more than the law wants or wishes; yet
there are peculiarities in this case that take it out of the general
rules." Stewart then nodded to an officer, who went out and returned.
"There stands the prisoner."
"Charles S----th!" ejaculated the uncle: "my own nephew! execrable
villain!"
And he looked at the youth with bated breath and fiery eyes.
There was silence for a few minutes. The officials looked pitiful. The
mother hung down her head; and little Jeannie leered significantly,
while she took the strings of her bonnet, tied them, undid them again,
and flung away the ends till they went round her neck; nay, the playful
minx was utterly dead to the condition of her brother who stood there,
ashamed to look any one in the face, if he was not rather like an
exhumed corpse; and we would not be far out if we said that she even
laughed as she saw the curmudgeon staring like an angry mastiff at the
brother she loved so well. But then, was she not an eccentric thing,
driven hither and thither by vagrant impulses, and with thoughts in her
head which nobody could understand?
"Was this the man who robbed you, Mr. Henderson?"
"Yes, the very man; now when I recollect. Stay, was there any
handkerchief found on him?"
"Yes; that," said an officer, producing a red silk handkerchief.
"Why, I gave him that," said Mr. Henderson. "It cost me 4s. 6d.; and it
was that he had over his face when he robbed me of my hard-earned
money!"
"It is true," said Charles; "and sorry am I for the frolic, which my
companions forced me into."
"A frolic with five pounds at its credit," said Mr. Henderson. "Where is
the money, sir?"
"Ah! I know, dear uncle," cried the watchful Jeannie, in a piercing
treble of the clearest silver.
All eyes were turned on Jeannie.
"Then where is it, girl?"
"I saw him put it in his snuff-mull last night when he was at mother's."
"Examine your box, Mr. Henderson."
The man growled, took out the box, and there was the five pounds. He
looked at Jeannie as if he would have devoured her with his nose at a
single pinch.
"Was Mr. Henderson sober, Miss S----th?"
"No."
"Was he drunk?"
"No. Only he couldn't stand scarcely, though he could walk; and he
called mother Jeannie, and me Peggy, and he said 'twas a shame in us to
burn two candles at his expense, when one was enough."
"_Saved by a pinch_," cried Captain Stewart.
"Mr. Henderson," said the fiscal, "the case is done, and would never
have come here if your nose had happened last night to be as itchy as
your hand. The prisoner is discharged."
And no sooner had the words been uttered than Jeannie flew to her
brother, hung round his neck, kissed him, blubbered and played such
antics that the fiscal could not refrain searching for his handkerchief.
He found it too; but just as if this article were no part of his
official property, he returned it to his pocket; and then, as he saw
Charles leaning on his mother's breast, and making more noise with his
heart and lungs than he could have done if he had been hanged, he
resolved, after due deliberation, to let the "hanging drop" have its own
way in sticking on the top of his cheek, and determined not to fall for
all his jerking.
"BARBADOES, _15th July_ 18--.
"MY DEAREST LITTLE JEANNIE,--I am at length settled the manager of a
great sugar factory, with £400 a year. Tell your mother I will write her
by next post; and all I can say meantime is, that Messrs. Coutts and Co.
will pay her £100 a year, half-yearly, till I return to keep you, for
saving me from the gallows. Accept the offer of the old man. He is worth
£500 a year; and you're just the little winged spirit that will keep up
a fire of life in a good heart only a little out of use.
"_P.S._--Tell uncle that I will send him five pounds of snuff, by next
ship, in return for the five pounds I took out of his box on that
eventful night, which was the beginning of my reformation.
"Tell Mrs. S----k and Mrs. W----pe that their sons arrived at Jamaica;
but, poor fellows, they are both dead.
"The same vessel that carries the snuff will convey to mother a hogshead
of sugar and a puncheon of rum. So that at night, in place of the tiny
phial which held a glass, and which you used to draw out of your pocket
so slily when mother was weakly, you may now mix for her a tumbler of
rum-punch; and if you don't take some too, I'll send you no more. But,
hark ye, Jeannie, don't give uncle a _drop_, though he tried to give me
one that, I fear, would have made my head, like yours, a little giddy.
Adieu, dear little Ariel."
THE PROCRASTINATOR.
Being overtaken by a shower in Kensington Gardens, I sought shelter in
one of the alcoves near the palace. I was scarce seated, when the storm
burst with all its fury; and I observed an old fellow, who had stood
loitering till the hurricane whistled round his ears, making towards me,
as rapidly as his apparently palsied limbs would permit. Upon his nearer
approach, he appeared rather to have suffered from infirmity than years.
He wore a brownish-black coat, or rather shell, which, from its
dimensions, had never been intended for the wearer; and his
inexpressibles were truly inexpressible. "So," said I, as he seated
himself on the bench, and shook the rain from his old broad-brimmed hat,
"you see, old boy, '_Procrastination is the thief of time_;' the clouds
gave you a hint of what was coming, but you seemed not to take it." "It
is," replied he, eagerly. "Doctor Young is in the right. Procrastination
has been my curse since I was in leading-strings. It has grown with my
growth, and strengthened with my strength. It has ever been my besetting
sin--my companion in prosperity and adversity; and I have slept upon it,
like Samson on the lap of Delilah, till it has shorn my locks and
deprived me of my strength. It has been to me a witch, a manslayer, and
a murderer; and when I would have shaken it off in wrath and in disgust,
I found I was no longer master of my own actions and my own house. It
had brought around me a host of its blood relations--its sisters and its
cousins-german--to fatten on my weakness, and haunt me to the grave; so
that when I tore myself from the embrace of one, it was only to be
intercepted by another. You are young, sir, and a stranger to me; but
its effects upon me and my history--the history of a poor paralytic
shoemaker--if you have patience to hear, may serve as a beacon to you in
your voyage through life."
Upon expressing my assent to his proposal--for the fluency and fervency
of his manner had at once riveted my attention and excited curiosity--he
continued:--
"I was born without a fortune, as many people are. When about five years
of age, I was sent to a parish school in Roxburghshire, and
procrastination went with me. Being possessed of a tolerable memory, I
was not more deficient than my schoolfellows; but the task which they
had studied the previous evening was by me seldom looked at till the
following morning, and my seat was the last to be occupied of any other
on the form. My lessons were committed to memory by a few hurried
glances, and repeated with a faltering rapidity, which not unfrequently
puzzled the ear of the teacher to follow me. But what was thus hastily
learned, was as suddenly forgotten. They were mere surface impressions,
each obliterated by the succeeding. And though I had run over a
tolerable general education, I left school but little wiser than when I
entered it.
"My parents--peace to their memory!"--here the old fellow looked most
feelingly, and a tear of filial recollection glistened in his eyes: it
added a dignity to the recital of his weakness, and I almost reverenced
him--"My parents," continued he, "had no ambition to see me rise higher
in society than an honest tradesman; and at thirteen I was bound
apprentice to a shoemaker. Yes, sir, I was--I am a shoemaker; and but
for my curse--my malady--had been an ornament to my profession. I have
measured the foot of a princess, sir; I have made slippers to his
Majesty!" Here his tongue acquired new vigour from the idea of his own
importance. "Yes, sir, I have made slippers to his Majesty; yet I am an
unlucky--I am a bewitched--I am a ruined man. But to proceed with my
history. During the first year of my apprenticeship, I acted in the
capacity of errand boy; and, as such, had to run upon many an unpleasant
message--sometimes to ask money, frequently to borrow it. Now, sir, I am
also a _bashful_ man, and, as I was saying, _bashfulness_ is one of the
blood relations which procrastination has fastened upon me. While acting
in my last-mentioned capacity, I have gone to the house, gazed at every
window, passed it and repassed it, placed my hand upon the rapper,
withdrawn it, passed it and repassed it again, stood hesitating and
consulting with myself, then resolved to defer it till the next day, and
finally returned to my master, not with a direct lie, but a broad
_equivocation_; and this was another of the cousins-german which
procrastination introduced to my acquaintance.
"In the third year of my servitude, I became fond of reading; was
esteemed a quick workman; and, having no desire for money beyond what
was necessary to supply my wants, I gave unrestricted indulgence to my
new passion. We had each an allotted quantity of work to perform weekly.
Conscious of being able to complete it in half the time, and having
yielded myself solely to my ruinous propensity to delay, I seldom did
anything before the Thursday; and the remaining days were spent in
hurry, bustle, and confusion. Occasionally I overrated my abilities--my
task was unfinished, and I was compelled to count a _dead horse_. Week
after week this grew upon me, till I was so firmly saddled, that, until
the expiration of my apprenticeship, I was never completely freed from
it. This was another of my curse's handmaidens."
Here he turned to me with a look of seriousness, and said, "Beware,
young man, how you trust to your own strength and your own talents; for
however noble it may be to do so, let it be in the open field, before
you are driven into a corner, where your arms may come in contact with
the thorns and the angles of the hedges.
"About this time, too, I fell in love--yes, _fell_ in love; for I just
beheld the fair object, and I was a dead man, or a new man, or anything
you will. Frequently as I have looked and acted like a fool, I believe I
never did so so strikingly as at that moment. She was a beautiful
girl--a very angel of light--about five feet three inches high, and my
own age. Heaven knows how I ever had courage to declare my passion; for
I put it off day after day, and week after week, always preparing a new
speech against the next time of meeting her, until three or four rivals
stepped forward before me. At length I did speak, and never was love
more clumsily declared. I told her in three words; then looked to the
ground, and again in her face most pitifully. She received my addresses
just as saucily as a pretty girl could do. But it were useless to go
over our courtship; it was the only happy period of my existence, and
every succeeding day has been misery. Matters were eventually brought to
a bearing, and the fatal day of final felicity appointed. I was yet
young, and my love possessed all the madness of a first passion. She not
only occupied my heart, but my whole thoughts; I could think of nothing
else, speak of nothing else, and, what was worse, do nothing else: it
burned up the very capabilities of action, and rendered my native
indolence yet more indolent. However, the day came (and a bitter stormy
day it was), the ceremony was concluded, and the honeymoon seemed to
pass away in a fortnight.
"About twelve months after our marriage, Heaven (as authors say) blest
our loves with a son and, I had almost said, heir. Deplorable
patrimony!--heir of his mother's features--the sacrifice of his father's
weakness." Kean could not have touched this last burst. The father, the
miserable man, parental affection, agony, remorse, repentance, were
expressed in a moment.
A tear was hurrying down his withered cheek as he dashed it away with
his dripping sleeve. "I am a weak old fool," said he, endeavouring to
smile; for there was a volatile gaiety in his disposition, which his
sorrows had subdued, but not extinguished. "Yet, my boy! my poor dear
Willie!--I shall never--no, I shall never see him again!" Here he again
wept; and had nature not denied me that luxury, I should have wept too,
for the sake of company. After a pause, he again proceeded:--
"After the birth of my child, came the baptism. I had no conscientious
objection to the tenets of the Established Church of my country; but I
belonged to no religious community. I had never thought of it as an
obligation beyond that of custom, and deferred it from year to year,
till I felt ashamed to 'go forward' on account of my age. My wife was a
Cameronian; and to them, though I knew nothing of their principles, I
had an aversion. But for her to hold up the child while I was in the
place, was worse than heathenism--was unheard-of in the parish. The
nearest Episcopal chapel was at Kelso, a distance of ten miles. The
child still remained unbaptized. 'It hasna a name yet,' said the
ignorant meddlers, who had no higher idea of the ordinance. It was a
source of much uneasiness to my wife, and gave rise to some family
quarrelling. Months succeeded weeks, and eventually the child was
carried to the Episcopal church. This choked up all the slander of the
town, and directed it into one channel upon my devoted head. Some said I
'wasna sound,' and all agreed I 'was nae better than I should be,' while
the zealous clergyman came to my father, expressing his fears that 'his
son was in a bad way.' For this, too, am I indebted to procrastination.
I thus became a martyr to supposed opinions, of which I was ignorant;
and such was the unchristian bigotry of my neighbours, that, deeming it
sinful to employ one whom they considered little other than a pagan,
about five years after my marriage I was compelled to remove with my
family to London.
"We were at this period what tradesmen term _miserably hard up_. Having
sold off our little stock of furniture, after discharging a few debts
which were unavoidably contracted, a balance of rather less than two
pounds remained; and upon this, my wife, my child, and myself were to
travel a distance of three hundred and fifty miles. I will not go over
the journey: we performed it on foot in twenty days; and, including
lodging, our daily expense amounted to one shilling and eightpence; so
that, on entering the metropolis, all we possessed was five shillings
and a few pence. It was the dead of winter, and nearly dark, when we
were passing down St. John Street, Clerkenwell. I was benumbed, my wife
was fainting, and our poor child was blue and speechless. We entered a
public-house near Smithfield, where two pints of warm porter and ginger,
with a crust of bread and cheese, operated as partial restoratives. The
noisy scene of butchers, drovers, and coal-heavers was new to me. My
child was afraid, my wife uncomfortable, and I, a gaping observer,
forgetful of my own situation. My boy pulled my coat, and said, 'Come,
father;' my wife jogged my elbow, and reminded me of a lodging; but my
old reply, '_Stop a little_,' was my ninety and nine times repeated
answer. Frequently the landlord made a long neck over the table, gauging
the contents of our tardily emptied pint; and, as the watchman was
calling 'Past eleven,' finally took it away, and bade us 'bundle off.'
Now I arose, feeling at once the pride of my spirit and the poorness of
my purse, vowing never to darken his door again, should I remain in
London a hundred years.
"On reaching the street, I inquired at a half-grown boy where we might
obtain a lodging; and after causing me to inquire twice or thrice--'I no
ken, Sawney--haud awa' north,' said the brat, sarcastically imitating my
accent. I next inquired of a watchman, who said there was no place upon
his beat; but _beat_ was Gaelic to me; and I repeated my inquiry to
another, who directed me towards the hells of Saffron Hill. At a third,
I requested to be informed the way, who, after abusing me for seeking
lodgings at such an hour, said he had seen me in the town six hours
before, and bade us go to the devil. A fourth inquired if we had any
money, took us to the bar of a public-house, called for a quartern of
gin, drank our healths, asked if we could obtain a bed, which being
answered in the negative, he hurried to the door, bawling 'Half-past
eleven,' and left me to pay for the liquor. On reaching Saffron Hill, it
was in an Irish uproar: policemen, thieves, prostitutes, and Israelites
were brawling in a satanic mass of iniquity; blood and murder was the
order of the night. My child screamed, my wife clung to my arm; she
would not, she durst not, sleep in such a place. To be brief: we had to
wander in the streets till the morning; and I believe that night, aided
by a broken heart, was the forerunner of her death. It was the first
time I had been compelled to walk trembling for a night without shelter,
or to sit frozen on a threshold; and this, too, I owe to
procrastination.