"You're to give this woman board and lodging for a day or two, and I
will pay you before I start."
"That will be oot o' the five hundred frae her uncle," said the man,
laughing. "She's my lady noo; but what will become o' the mice?"
"There's Meg Davidson passing the window e'en noo," said the woman.
"Send her in," said the writer to the change-house keeper.
The woman going under this name was immediately introduced by the man,
with a kind of mock formality; for he could not get quit of the
impression that his old customer had really succeeded to the five
hundred pounds--a sum, in his estimation, sufficiently large to insure
respect.
"Maggy," said the writer, "tak this chair, and here's a dram. What think
ye?"
"I dinna ken."
"Ye're to get the twa white mice and the cage for naething, and this
dram to boot."
Meg's face cleared up like a June sun come out in a burst.
"Na," she said; "ye're joking."
"But it's upon a condition," rejoined he.
"Weel, what is't--that I'm to feed them weel, and keep them clean?"
"You'll do that too," said he, laughing, "for they're valuable
creatures, and bonny; but you're to say you've had them for a year."
"For twa, if you like," replied the woman; "a puir fusionless lee that,
and no worth sending a body to the deil for."
"Here they are," said the tramp; "and you're to tak care o' them.
They've been my staff for mony a day, and they're the only creatures on
earth I care for and like; for they never said to me, 'Get out, ye
wretch,' or banned me for a witch; but were aye sae happy wi' their
pickles o' barley, and maybe a knot o' sugar, when I could get at a
farmer's wife's bowl."
Even hags have pathetic moods. Meg was affected; and the writer, having
appreciated the virtue, whispered in the ear of his _protegee_, "Seven
o'clock on Wednesday night," and left them to the remainder of the
whisky. At the door he settled with the man, and, mounting his horse,
which he had ordered a bottle of strong ale for, in addition to his
oats, he set off at his old trot.
"Now let the Crown blood-hounds catch Meg Davidson and her mice," he
said, as he pushed on.
The writer was, no doubt, bent eagerly for home, but he seldom got to
his intended destination, though we have given one or two examples of
an uninterrupted course, without undergoing several stoppages, either
from the sudden calls of business, which lay in every direction, or the
seductions of conviviality, equally ubiquitous; and on this occasion he
was hailed from the window of the inn by some ten-tumbler men of Forfar,
whose plan for draining the loch, by making toddy of it, had not, to
their discomfort, been realized, but who made due retaliation by very
clean drainings elsewhere. The moment he heard the shout he understood
the meaning thereof, because he knew the house, the locality, and the
men; and Meg Davidson and her mice were passed into the wallet-bag of
time, till he should give these revellers their satisfaction in a boon
companion who could see them under the table, and then mount his horse,
with a power of retention of his seat unexampled in a county famous for
revolutions of heads as well as of bodies. Dismounting from his horse,
he got his dinner, a meal he had expected at Dundee; and, in spite of
the distance of fourteen miles which lay before him, he despatched
tumbler after tumbler without being once tempted to the imprudence of
letting out his extraordinary hunt, but rather with the prudence of
sending, through his compotators, to the county town the fact that a
woman who perambulated the country with white mice was really the
murderer of the country girl. This statement he was able to make, even
at that acme of his dithyrambics, when, as usual, he got upon the head
of the table to make his speech of the evening. It was now eleven, and
he had swallowed eight tumblers, yet he was comparatively steady when he
mounted; and, though during the fourteen miles he swung like a
well-ballasted barque in a gale of wind, he made sufficient headway to
be home by half-past twelve.
Next morning, as ready and able as usual for the work of the day, he was
at his desk about eleven, and when engaged with one client, while others
were waiting to be despatched in the way in which he alone could
discharge clients, he was waited on by a gentleman connected with the
Crown Office. Having been yielded a preference, the official took his
seat.
"I understand you are employed for Mrs. S----?" he said. "We have
thought it necessary, as disinterested protectors of the lives of the
king's subjects, to apprehend this woman. I need not say that our
precognitions are our guarantee; but I have heard a report which would
seem to impugn our discretion, if it do not shame our judgment, insomuch
that, if it be true, we have seized the wrong person. Do you know
anything of this woman with the white mice, who takes upon herself the
burden of a self-accusation? Of course it is for you to help us to her
as the salvation of your client."
"Too evident that for a parade of candour," replied Mr. M----. "Her name
is Margaret Davidson. Her white companions will identify her. Her
residence is where you may chance to find her."
"Very vague, considering your interest," replied the other. "Where did
you find her?"
"Ask me first, my dear sir, whether I have found her. Perhaps not. If it
is my interest to search her out, it is not less your duty to catch her.
A vagrant with white mice is a kenspeckle, and surely you can have no
difficulty in tracing her. I need scarcely add, that when you do find
her, you will substitute her for my client, and make amends for the
disgrace you have brought upon an innocent woman and a respectable
family."
"I won't say that," replied the other, shaking his head. "The evidence
against Mrs. S---- is too heavy to admit of our believing a vagrant,
influenced by the desire of, perhaps, a paid martyrdom, or the
excitement of a mania."
"Then, why ask me to help you to find her?"
"For our satisfaction as public officers."
"And to my detriment as a private agent."
"Not at all."
"Yes; if I choose to make her a witness for the defence, and leave the
jury to judge of _paid_ martyrdom, or her real madness. Paid
martyrdom!--paid by whom?"
"Not necessarily by you."
"But you want me to help you to be able to prove the bribe out of her
own mouth, don't you?"
"Of course we would examine her."
"Yes, and cook her; but you must catch her first. Really, my dear sir, a
very useful recipe in cuisine; and, hark ye, you can put the mice in the
pan also. But, really, I am not bound, and cannot in justice be expected
to do more. I have given you her name; and when had a culprit so
peculiar and striking a designation as being the proprietor of a
peripatetic menagerie?"
"Ridiculous!"
"Yes, _ridiculus mus_! But are you not the labouring mountain yourself,
and do you not wish me to become the midwife?"
"I perceive I can make nothing of you," at length said the gentleman.
"You either don't want to save your client, or the means you trust to
cannot stand the test."
"God bless my soul!" roared the writer; "must I tell you again that I
have given you her name and occupation? Even a cat, with nose-instinct
put awry by the colour of the white race of victims, would smell her
out."
Bowing the official to the door with these words, he was presently in
some other ravelled web, which he disentangled with equal success and
apparent ease; but, following him in his great scheme, we find him in
the afternoon posting again to the farm. He found the farmer in the same
collapse of hope, sitting in the arm-chair so long pressed by his wife,
with his chin upon his breast, and his eyes dim and dead. The evidence
had got piece by piece to his ear, paralyzing more and more the tissues
of his brain; and hope had assumed the character of an impossibility in
the moral world of God's government.
"You must cheer up," said the writer. "Come, some milk and whisky. Move
about; I have got good news for you, but cannot trust you."
The head of the man was raised up, and a slight beam was, as it were,
struck from his eye by the jerk of a sudden impulse. His step, as he
moved to gratify the agent, seemed to have acquired even a spring.
"Why are you here," he said, as he brought the indispensable jug, with
something even more than the five-eighths of the spiritual element added
to the two glasses, "if you cannot tell me the grounds of my hope? I
could not comprehend what you meant about the woman and the white mice."
"Nor do I want you to understand it; it is enough if I do," replied Mr.
M----, as he put the jug to his mouth; "but this I want you to
understand, in the first place, that I want an order for fifty pounds
from you."
The farmer was too happy to write an order for any amount within the
limits of his last farthing, and getting pen and ink, he wrote the
cheque.
"And you couldn't tell me the name of the woman with the mice; but I can
tell you," he continued. "It is Margaret Davidson; and, hark ye--come
near me, man--if you are called upon by any one with the appearance of a
sheriff's beagle, or whatever he may be like, for the name of that
woman, say it is Margaret Davidson, and that they will find her between
Lerwick and Berwick. Do you comprehend?"
"Perfectly."
"And, moreover, you are to tell every living soul within ear-shot,
servants or strangers, that it was that very woman who gave the dose to
the lass, and that the woman herself does not deny it."
"Gude Lord! but is all this true, Mr. M----?"
"Is it true your wife did it, then, you d----d idiot?" cried the writer,
using thus one of his most familiar terms, but with perfect good-nature.
"Don't you in your heart--or hope, at any rate--think the Lord Advocate
a liar? and has his lordship a better right to lie than I or Meg
Davidson? Isn't the world a great leavened lump of lies from the Cape of
Good Hope to the Cape of Wrath? And you want your wife hanged, because
the nose of truth is out of joint a bit! Ay, what though it were cut off
altogether, if you get your wife's back without being coloured blue by
the hangman? But, I tell you, it's not a lie: the woman with the white
mice says it of her own accord."
"Wonderful! the woman with the white mice!"
"The woman with the white mice!" echoed the writer.
And, getting again upon his legs, he hurried out, throwing back his
injunctions upon S---- to obey his instructions. In a few minutes more
he was again upon the road, leaving the clatter of his horse's hoofs to
mingle with the confused thoughts of his mystified client. Arrived at
the High Street, where, as used to be said of him, he could not be ten
minutes without having seized some five or six persons by the breast of
the coat, and put as many questions on various matters of business, just
as the thought struck him on the instant, he pounced upon one, no other
than the confidential clerk of the fiscal.
"I say, man," seizing and holding him in the usual way, "have you
catched the woman yet?"
"What woman?" replied the clerk.
"The woman with the white mice."
"Oh," cried the young man, "we have no faith in that quarter--a mere
get-up; but we're looking about for her, notwithstanding."
"Well, tell your master that Meg Davidson was last seen on the Muir of
Rannoch, and that the Highlanders in that outlandish quarter, having
never seen white mice before, are in a state of perfect amazement."
A bolt at some other person left the clerk probably in as great
amazement as the Highlanders; but our man of the law did not stop to see
the extent of it. All his avocations, however, did not prevent the
coming round of that seven o'clock on Wednesday evening, which he had
appointed as the hour of meeting with the woman on whom his hopes of
saving his client almost altogether rested. He was at his desk at the
hour, and the woman, no doubt eager for the phenomenon of the "louping
ee," was as true as the time itself. The writer locked the door of his
office, and drawing her as near him as possible, inquired first whether
any knew she was in town.
"Deil are," she replied; "naebody cares for me ony mair than I were an
auld glandered spavin, ready for the knackers."
"And you've been remembering a' ye are to say?"
Now, the woman did not answer this question immediately. She had been,
for some days, busy in the repository of her memory--a crazy box of
shattered spunk-wood, through the crevices of which came the lurid
lights sent from another box, called the imagination, and such was the
close intimacy, or rather mixture, of the revelations of these two magic
centres, that they could not be distinguished from one another; but the
habit of fortune-telling had so quickened the light of the one, as to
make it predominate over, and almost extinguish that of the other, so
that she was at a loss to get a stray glimmer of the memory, to make her
ready, on the instant, for the answer.
"Remembering! Ay," she said, "there's no muckle to remember. The lass
was under the burden of shame, and couldna bear it: she wanted some
doctor's trash to tak that burden aff her, if it should carry her life
alang wi' 't. I got the stuff, and the woman dee'd."
All which was carefully written down--but the writer had his own way of
doing his work. He would have day and date, the place where the doctor's
trash was bought, the price thereof, the manner of administering the
same, and many other particulars, every one of which was so carefully
recorded, that the whole, no doubt, looked like a veritable precognition
of facts, got from the said box called the memory, as if it had been
that not one tint of light, from the conterminous chamber, had mixed
with the pure spirit of truth.
"Now," said he, "regaining his English, when his purpose was served,
"you'll stand firm to this, in the face of judge, jury, justice, and all
her angels?"
"Never ye fear."
"Then, you will go with me to a private lodging, where I wish you to
remain, seen by as few as you can. You're a widow; your name is Mrs.
Anderson; your husband was drowned in the Maelstrom. Get weeds, a veil,
and look respectable."
"A' save the last, for that's impossible."
"Try; and, as you will need to pay for your board and lodgings, and your
dress, here's the sum I promised ye; the other half when Mrs. S---- is
saved."
"A' right; and did I no say my ee would loup?--but 'ae gude turn
deserves anither,' as the deil said to the loon o' Culloden, when he
hauled him doun, screaming, to a place ye maybe ken o', and whaur I hae
nae wish to be."
"Where is Meg Davidson?" he then asked.
"Oh ay!" she replied, "that puts me in mind o' a man wha met me on the
road, and asked me if I was the woman wi' the twa white mice? I tauld
him she was awa east to Montrose, and sae it is."
"Not a cheep of the sale," added he.
"Na, na, nor o' ony thing else, but just Mrs. Anderson, the widow, whase
man was drouned in the Maelstream."
And, having thus finished, the writer led the woman to her place of
safety, there to lie _in retentis_ till the court-day.
That eventful day came round. In the meantime, the prosecution never got
access to the real white mouse tramp, and whatever they got out of Meg
Davidson, satisfied them that she knew nothing of the murder. Large sums
were given to secure the services of Jeffrey, then in the full blaze of
his power, and Cockburn, so useful in examinations. The Lord Advocate
led his proof, which was no darker than our writer had ascertained it to
be, when he found himself driven to his clever expedient. The proof for
the defence began; and, after some other witnesses were examined, the
name of the woman with the white mice was called by the macer; and here
occurred a circumstance, at the time known to very few. Cockburn turned
round to our country agent, who was sitting behind him, and said, in a
whisper--
"M----, if the angel Gabriel were at this moment to come down and blow a
trumpet, and tell me that what this woman is going to swear to is truth,
I would not believe her."
Nor is there any doubt to be entertained that the woman's testimony took
the court and the audience by surprise. The judges looked at each other,
and the jury were perplexed. There was only one thing that produced any
solicitude in our writer. He feared the Lord Advocate would lay hands
upon her, as either a murderer or a perjurer, the moment she left the
witness-box. At that instant was he prepared. Quietly slipping out, he
got hold of the woman, led her to the outer door, through a crowd,
called to the door-keeper, who stood sentry, to open for the purpose of
letting in a fresh witness of great importance to the accused; and
having succeeded, as he seldom failed, he got the woman outside. A cab
was in readiness--no time lost--the woman was pushed in, followed by her
guardian, and in a short time was safely disposed of. Meanwhile, the
Crown authorities had been preparing their warrant, and the woman was
only saved from their mercies by a very few minutes.
It is well known, as I have already mentioned, that Jeffrey's speech for
Mrs. S---- was the greatest of all modern orations, yet it was delivered
under peculiar circumstances. When he rose and began, he seemed languid
and unwell. The wonted sparkle was not seen in his eye, the usually
compressed lip was loose and flaccid, and his words, though all his
beginnings were generally marked with a subdued tone, came with
difficulty. Cockburn looked at him inquiringly, anxious and troubled.
There was something wrong, and those interested in the defence augured
ominously. All of a sudden the little man stopped, fixed his eye on one
of the walls of the court-room, and cried out, "Shut that window."
Through that opening a cold wind had been blowing-upon and chilling a
body which, though firm and compact, was thin, wiry, and delicately
toned to the refined requirements of the spirit that animated and moved
it with a grace peculiarly his own. The chill, in consonance with
well-known pathological laws, produced first depression, and then a
feverish reaction, which latter was even morbidly favourable to the
development of his powers. He began to revive; the blood, pulsing with
more than natural activity, warmed still more at the call of his
enthusiasm. He analyzed every part of the cause, tore up the characters
of the prosecutor's witnesses, held up microscopic flaws, and passed
them through the lens of his ingenious exaggeration, till they appeared
serious in the eyes of the jury. Then how touching, if not noble, was
the conduct of that strange witness for the defence--who, a wretched
criminal herself, would yet, under a secret power, so far expiate her
guilt by offering herself as a sacrifice for innocence! Beyond all was
the pathos of his peroration, where he brought home the case to the
jury, as loving husbands of loving wives, and tender fathers of beloved
children. A woman sat there before them--a wife and a mother. She had
undergone an ordeal not much less trying than death itself, and even then
she was trembling under the agony of suspense, extended beyond mortal
powers of endurance--to be terminated by the breath of their mouths,
either for life and a restoration to a previously happy family, or for a
death on a gallows, with all its ignominy.
That speech, which nearly cost Jeffrey his life, saved that of another.
The jury found the libel not proven; Mrs. S---- was free; Jeffrey was
made more famous; but no one ever heard more of the woman with the white
mice.