never can get at the truth without testing, by proof, the statement
made by the second Helen in regard to the six toes, because if it is
really a fact that the testator carried this number on his left foot,
and by parity that that number carried him, it is impossible to get
quit of the presumption that the fact was communicated confidentially
when the operation of paring was resorted to; and as confidence
implies friendship, and friendship intimacy, we must assume that there
must have been such an amount of mutual liking on the part of these
individuals as would justify the legacy which is the subject-matter
of this multiplepoinding. The Court will therefore issue an order
for the exhumation of the body of Andrew Gebbie, for the purpose of
ascertaining whether the testator’s foot was formed in the manner
asserted by the claimant.”
The commission was accordingly issued. The body of the elder was
examined as it lay in the coffin, and the result of the examination, as
stated in the report, was: “That the left foot was furnished with six
toes, the sixth or supernumerary one being much smaller than the one
next to it. It also appeared that the toes of this foot were supplied
with a number of very hard corns, which bore the marks of having been
often pared by some very careful hand.”
Whereupon the case was again taken up, when judgment was given for the
second Helen, who was thus remarkably well paid for her attention to
the corns of the worthy elder. When the decision was reported to the
reverend executors, Father Tron shook his head with great gravity,
Tolbooth did the same, and so did Trinity: nay, they all shook their
heads at the same time: but what they intended to signify thereby was
never known, for the reason that it was never declared.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The Story of Mysie Craig.
In detailing the curious circumstances of the following story, I am
again only reporting a real law case to be found in the Court of
Session Records, the turning-point of which was as invisible to the
judges as to the parties themselves--that is, until the end came; a
circumstance again which made the case a kind of developed romance. But
as an end implies a beginning, and the one is certainly as necessary as
the other, we request you to accompany us--taking care of your feet--up
the narrow spiral staircase of a tenement called Corbet’s Land, in
the same old town where so many wonderful things in the complicated
drama--or dream, if you are a Marphurius--of human life have occurred.
Up which spiral stair having got by the help of our hands, almost
as indispensable as that of the feet--we find ourselves in a little
human dovecot of two small rooms, occupied by two persons not unlike,
in many respects, two doves--Widow Craig and her daughter, called
May, euphuised by the Scotch into Mysie. The chief respects in which
they might be likened, without much stress, to the harmless creatures
we have mentioned, were their love for each other, together with
their total inoffensiveness as regarded the outside world; and we are
delighted to say this, for we see so many of the multitudinous sides of
human nature dark and depraved, that we are apt to think there is no
bright side at all. Nor shall we let slip the opportunity of saying,
at the risk of being considered very simple, that of all the gifts of
felicity bestowed, as the Pagan Homer tells, upon mankind by the gods,
no one is so perfect and beautiful as the love that exists between a
good mother and a good daughter.
For so much we may be safe by having recourse to instinct, which is
deeper than any secondary causes we poor mortals can see. But beyond
this, there were special reasons tending to this same result of mutual
affection, which come more within the scope of our observation. In
explanation of which we may say that the mother, having something in
her power during her husband’s life, had foreseen the advantages of
using it in the instruction of her quick and intelligent daughter
in an art of far more importance then than now--that of artistic
needlework. Nay, of so much importance was this beautiful art, and
to such perfection was it brought at a time when a lady’s petticoat,
embroidered by the hand, with its profuse imitations of natural
objects, flowers, and birds, and strange devices, would often cost
twenty pounds Scots, that a sight of one of those operose achievements
of genius would make us blush for our time and the labours of our
women. Nor was the perfection in this ornamental industry a new thing,
for the daughters of the Pictish kings confined in the castle were
adepts in it; neither was it left altogether to paid sempstresses, for
great ladies spent their time in it, and emulation quickened both the
genius and the diligence. So we need hardly say it became to the mother
a thing to be proud of, that her daughter Mysie proved herself so apt
a scholar that she became an adept, and was soon known as one of the
finest embroideresses in the great city. So, too, as a consequence,
it came to pass that great ladies employed her, and often the narrow
spiral staircase of Corbet’s Land was brushed on either side by the
huge masses of quilted and emblazoned silk that, enveloping the belles
of the day, were with difficulty forced up to, and down from, the small
room of the industrious Mysie.
But we are now speaking of art, while we should have more to say (for
it concerns us more) of the character of the young woman who was
destined to figure in a stranger way than in making beautiful figures
on silk. Mysie was one of a class; few in number they are indeed, but
on that account more to be prized. Her taste and fine manipulations
were but counterparts of qualities of the heart--an organ to which the
pale face, with its delicate lines, and the clear liquid eyes, was a
suitable index. The refinement which enabled her to make her imitation
of beautiful objects on the delicate material of her work was only
another form of a sensibility which pervaded her whole nature--that
gift which is only conceded to peculiar organisations, and is such a
doubtful one, too, if we go, as we cannot help doing, with the poet,
when he sings that “chords that vibrate sweetest pleasures,” often also
“thrill the deepest notes of woe.” Nay, we might say that the creatures
themselves seem to fear the gift, for they shrink from the touch of
the rough world, and retire within themselves as if to avoid it, while
they are only courting its effects in the play of an imagination much
too ardent for the duties of life. And, as a consequence, how they
seek secretly the support of stronger natures, clinging to them as do
those strange plants called parasites, which, with their tender arms
and something so like fingers, cling to the nearest stem of a stouter
neighbour, and embracing it, even though hollow and rotten, cover it,
and choke it with a flood of flowers. So true is it that woman, like
the generous vine, lives by being supported and held up; yet equally
true that the strength she gains is from the embrace she gives, and so
it is also that goodness, as our Scottish poet Home says, often wounds
itself, and affection proves the spring of sorrow.
All which might truly be applied to Mysie Craig; but as yet the
stronger stem to which she clung was her mother, and it was not
likely, nor was it in reality, that that affection would prove to her
anything but the spring of happiness, for it was ripened by love,
and the earnings of the nimble fingers, moving often into the still
hours of the night, not only kept the wolf from the door, but let in
the lambs of domestic harmony and peace. Would that these things had
so continued; but there are other wolves than those of poverty, and
the “ae lamb o’ the fauld” cannot be always under the protection of
the ewe; and so it happened on a certain night, not particularised
in the calendar, that our Mysie, having finished one of these floral
petticoats on which she had been engaged for many weeks, went forth
with her precious burden to deliver the same to its impatient
owner--no other than the then famous Anabella Gilroy, who resided in
Advocate’s Close. Of which fine lady, by the way, we may say that
of all the gay creatures who paraded between “the twa Bows,” no one
displayed such ample folds of brocaded silk, nodded her pon-pons more
jantily, or napped with a sharper crack her high-heeled shoes, all to
approve herself to “the bucks” of the time, with their square coats
brocaded with lace, their three-cornered hats on the top of their
bob-wigs, their knee-buckles and shoe-buckles. And certainly not the
least important of those, both in his own estimation and that of the
sprightly Anabella, was George Balgarnie, a young man who had only a
year before succeeded to the property of Balgruddery, somewhere in
the north, and of whom we might say that in forming him Nature had
taken so much pains with the building up of the body, that she had
forgotten the mind, so that he had no more spiritual matter in him than
sufficed to keep his blood hot, and enable his sensual organs to work
out their own selfish gratifications; or, to perpetrate a metaphor,
he was all the polished mahogany of a piano, without any more musical
springs than might respond to one keynote of selfishness. And surely
Anabella had approved herself to the fop to some purpose, for when our
sempstress with her bundle had got into the parlour of the fine lady,
she encountered no other than Balgarnie--a circumstance apparently of
very small importance, but we know that a moment of time is sometimes
like a small seed, which contains the nucleus of a great tree, perhaps
a poisonous one. And so it turned out that while Anabella was gloating
over the beautiful work of the timid embroideress, Balgarnie was
busy admiring the artist, but not merely, perhaps not at all, as an
artist--only as an object over whom he wished to exercise power.
This circumstance was not unobserved by the little embroideress, but it
was only observed to be shrunk from in her own timid way, and probably
it would soon have passed from her mind, if it had not been followed
up by something more direct and dangerous. And it was; for no sooner
had Mysie got to the foot of the stairs than she encountered Balgarnie,
who had gone out before her; and now began one of those romances in
daily life of which the world is full, and of which the world is sick.
Balgarnie, in short, commenced that kind of suit which is nearly as
old as the serpent, and, therefore, not to be wondered at; neither are
we to wonder that Mysie listened to it, because we have heard so much
about “lovely woman stooping to folly,” that we are content to put
it to the large account of natural miracles. And not very miraculous
either, when we remember, that if the low-breathed accents of
tenderness awaken the germ of love, they awaken at the same time faith
and trust; and such was the beginning of the romance which was to go
through the normal stages--the appointment to meet again--the meeting
itself--the others that followed--the extension of the moonlight walks,
sometimes to the Hunter’s Bog between Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury
Crags, and sometimes to the song-famed “Wells o’ Weary.” All which were
just as sun and shower to the germ of the plant: the love grew and
grew, and the faith grew and grew also which saw in him that which it
felt in itself. Nay, if any of those moonlight-loving elves that have
left their foot-marks in the fairy rings to be seen near St Anthony’s
Well had whispered in Mysie’s ear, “Balgarnie will never make you his
wife,” she would have believed the words as readily as if they had
impugned the sincerity of her own heart. In short, we have again the
analogue of the parasitic plant: the very fragility and timidity of
Mysie were at once the cause and consequence of her confidence. She
would cling to him and cover him with the blossoms of her affection;
nay, if there were unsoundness in the stem, these very blossoms would
cover the rottenness.
This change in the life of the little sempstress could not fail to
produce some corresponding change at home. We read smoothly the play we
have acted ourselves--and so the mother read love in the daughter’s
eyes, and heard it, too, in her long sighs; nor did she fail to read
the sign that the song which used to lighten her beautiful work was no
longer heard; for love to creatures so formed as Mysie Craig is too
serious an affair for poetical warbling. But she said nothing--for
while she had faith in the good sense and virtue of her daughter, she
knew also that there was forbearance due to one who was her support.
Nor, as yet, had she reason to fear, for Mysie still plied her needle,
and the roses and the lilies sprang up in all their varied colours
out of the ground of the silk or satin as quickly and as beautifully
as they were wont, though the lilies of her cheeks waxed paler as the
days flitted. And why the latter should have been we must leave to the
reader; for ourselves only hazarding the supposition that, perhaps, she
already thought that Balgarnie should be setting about to make her his
wife--an issue which behoved to be the result of their intimacy sooner
or later, for that in her simple mind there should be any other issue
was just about as impossible as that, in the event of the world lasting
as long, the next moon would not, at her proper time, again shine in
that green hollow, between the Lion’s Head and Samson’s Ribs, which
had so often been the scene of their happiness. Nay, we might say that
though a doubt on the subject had by any means got into her mind, it
would not have remained there longer than it took a shudder to scare
the wild thing away.
Of course, all this was only a question of time; but certain it is
that by and by the mother could see some connexion between Mysie’s
being more seldom out on those moonlight nights than formerly, and a
greater paleness in her thin face, as if the one had been the cause
of the other; but still she said nothing, for she daily expected that
Mysie would herself break the subject to her, and so she was left only
to increasing fears that her daughter’s heart and affections had been
tampered with, and perhaps she had fears that went farther. Still, so
far as yet had gone, there was no remission in the labours of Mysie’s
fingers, as if in the midst of all--whatever that all might be--she
recognised the paramount necessity of bringing in by those fingers
the required and usual amount of the means of their livelihood. Nay,
somehow or other, there was at that very time when her cheek was at the
palest, and her sighs were at their longest, and her disinclination
to speak was at the strongest, that the work increased upon her; for
was not there a grand tunic to embroider for Miss Anabella, which
was wanted on a given day--and were there not other things for Miss
Anabella’s friend, Miss Allardice, which were not to be delayed beyond
that same day. And so she stitched and stitched on and on, till
sometimes the little lamp seemed to go out for want of oil, while the
true cause of her diminished light was really the intrusion of the
morning sun, against which it had no chance. It might be, too, that her
very anxiety to get these grand dresses finished helped to keep out of
her mind ideas which could have done her small good, even if they had
got in.
But at length the eventful hour came when the gentle sempstress
withdrew the shining needle, made clear by long use, from the last
touch of the last rose; and, doubtless, if Mysie had not been under
the cloud of sorrow we have mentioned, she would have been happier at
the termination of so long a labour than she had ever been, for the
finishing evening had always been a great occasion to both the inmates;
nay, it had been always celebrated by a glass of strong Edinburgh
ale--a drink which, as both a liquor and a liqueur, was as famous then
as it is at this day. But of what avail was this work-termination to
her now? Was it not certain that she had not seen Balgarnie for two
moons, and though the impossibility of his not marrying her was just
as impossible as ever, why were these two moons left to shine in the
green hollow and on the rising hill without the privilege of throwing
the shadows of Mysie Craig and George Balgarnie on the grass, where the
fairies had left the traces of their dances? Questions these which
she was unable to answer, if it were not even that she was afraid to
put them to herself. Then, when was it that she felt herself unable
to tie up her work in order to take it home, and that her mother,
seeing the reacting effect of the prior sleepless nights in her languid
frame, did this little duty for her, even as while she was doing it
she looked through her tears at her changed daughter? But Mysie would
do so much. While the mother should go to Miss Allardice, Mysie would
proceed to Miss Anabella--and so it was arranged. They went forth
together, parting at the Netherbow; and Mysie, in spite of a weakness
which threatened to bring her with her burden to the ground, struggled
on to her destination. At the top of Advocate’s Close she saw a man
hurry out and increase his step even as her eye rested on him; and if
it had not appeared to her to be among the ultimate impossibilities of
things, natural as well as unnatural, she would have sworn that that
man was George Balgarnie; but then, it just so happened that Mysie came
to the conclusion that such a circumstance was among these ultimate
impossibilities.
This resolution was an effort which cost her more than the conviction
would have done, though doubtless she did not feel this at the time,
and so with a kind of forced step she mounted the stair, but when she
got into the presence of Miss Gilroy she could scarcely pronounce the
words--
“I have brought you the dress, ma’am.”
“And I am so delighted, Miss Craig, that I could almost take you into
my arms,” said the lady; “but what ails ye, dear? You are as white as
any snow I ever saw, whereas you ought to have been as blithe as a
bridesmaid, for don’t you know that you have brought me home one of my
marriage dresses? Come now, smile when I tell you that to-morrow is my
wedding-day.”
“Wedding-day,” muttered Mysie, as she thought of the aforesaid utter
impossibility of herself not being soon married to George Balgarnie, an
impossibility not rendered less impossible by the resolution she had
formed not to believe that within five minutes he had flown away from
her.
“Yes, Miss Craig, and surely you must have heard who the gentleman is,
for does not the town ring of it from the castle to the palace, from
Kirk-o’-Field to the Calton?”
“I have not been out,” said Mysie.
“That accounts for it,” continued the lady; “and I am delighted at the
reason, for wouldn’t it have been terrible to think that my marriage
with George Balgarnie of Balgruddery was a thing of so small a note as
not to be known everywhere?”
If Mysie Craig had appeared shortly before to Miss Gilroy paler than
any snow her ladyship had ever seen, she must now have been as pale
as some other kind of snow that nobody ever saw. The dreadful words
had, indeed, produced the adequate effect--but not in the most common
way, for we are to keep in view that it is not the most shrinking and
sensitive natures that are always the readiest to faint; and there was,
besides, the aforesaid conviction of impossibility which, grasping
the mind by a certain force, deadened the ear to words implying the
contrary. Mysie stood fixed to the spot, as if she were trying to
realise some certainty she dared not think was possible, her lips
apart, her eyes riveted on the face of the lady--mute as that kind of
picture which a certain ancient calls a silent poem, and motionless as
a figure of marble.
An attitude and appearance still more inexplicable to Anabella, perhaps
irritating as an unlucky omen, and, therefore, not possessing any claim
for sympathy--at least, it got none.
“Are you the Mysie Craig,” she cried, as she looked at the girl, “who
used to chat to me about the dresses you brought, and the flowers on
them? Ah, jealous and envious, is that it? But, you forget, George
Balgarnie never could have made _you_ his wife--a working needlewoman;
he only fancied you as the plaything of an hour. He told me so himself
when I charged him with having been seen in your company. So, Mysie,
you may as well look cheerful. Your turn will come next, with some one
in your own station.”
There are words which stimulate and confirm--there are others that
seem to kill the nerve and take away the sense, nor can we ever
tell the effect till we see it produced; and so we could not have
told beforehand--nay, we would have looked for something quite
opposite--that Mysie, shrinking and irritable as she was by nature, was
saved from a faint, (which had for some moments been threatening her,)
by the cruel insult which thus had been added to her misfortune. She
had even power to have recourse to that strange device of some natures,
that of “affecting to be not affected;” and, casting a glance at the
fine lady, she turned and went away without uttering a single word.
But who knows the pain of the conventional concealment of pain, except
those who have experienced the agony of the trial? Even at the moment
when she heard that George Balgarnie was to be married, and that she
came to know that she had been for weeks sewing the marriage dress of
his bride, she was carrying under her heart the living burden which was
the fruit of her love for that man. Yet not the burden of shame and
dishonour, as our story will show, for she was justified by the law
of her country--yea, by certain words once written by an apostle to
the Corinthians, all which may as yet appear a great mystery; but, as
regards Mysie Craig’s agony, as she staggered down Miss Gilroy’s stairs
on her way home, there could be no doubt or mystery whatever.
Nor, when she got home, was there any comfort there for the daughter
who had been so undutiful as to depart from her mother’s precepts, and
conceal from her not only her unfortunate connexion with a villain,
but the condition into which that connexion had brought her. But she
was, at least, saved from the pain of a part of the confession, for
her mother had learned enough from Miss Allardice to satisfy her as to
the cause of her daughter’s change from the happy creature she once
was, singing in the long nights as she wrought unremittingly at her
beautiful work, and the poor, sighing, pale, heart-broken thing she
had been for months. Nor did she fail to see, with the quick eye of a
mother, that as Mysie immediately on entering the house laid herself
quietly on the bed, and sobbed in her great agony, that she had learned
the terrible truth from Miss Gilroy that the robe she had embroidered
was to deck the bride of her destroyer. Moreover, her discretion
enabled her to perceive that this was not the time for explanation,
for the hours of grief are sacred, and the heart must be left to do its
work by opening the issues of Nature’s assuagement, or ceasing to beat.
So the night passed, without question or answer; and the following
day, that of the marriage, was one of silence, even as if death had
touched the tongue that used to be the medium of cheerful words and
tender sympathies--a strange contrast to the joy, if not revelry, in
Advocate’s Close.
It was not till after several days had passed that Mysie was able, as
she still lay in bed, to whisper, amidst the recurring sobs, in the
ear of her mother, as the latter bent over her, the real circumstances
of her condition; and still, amidst the trembling words, came the
vindication that she considered herself to be as much the wife of
George Balgarnie as if they had been joined by “Holy Kirk;” a statement
which the mother could not understand, if it was not to her a mystery,
rendered even more mysterious by a reference which Mysie made to the
law of the country, as she had heard the same from her cousin George
Davidson, a writer’s clerk in the Lawnmarket. Much of which, as it came
in broken syllables from the lips of the disconsolate daughter, the
mother put to the account of the fond dreams of a mind put out of joint
by the worst form of misery incident to young women. But what availed
explanations, mysteries or no mysteries, where the fact was patent
that Mysie Craig lay there, the poor heart-broken victim of man’s
perfidy--her powers of industry broken and useless--the fine weaving
genius of her fancy, whereby she wrought her embroidered devices to
deck and adorn beauty, only engaged now on portraying all the evils of
her future life; and, above all, was she not soon to become a mother?