afterwards the good laird slipt away out of this bad world as lightly
and easily as if he had felt the burden of his sins as imponderous as
the flying dove does the white feathers on its back. Nor did many more
days elapse before the mortal remains of the good man were deposited
in the churchyard of Cramond, leaving the double widow with her
contract of marriage and her tears for a second husband lying in the
earth so near the first, deep in the bosom of the Forth. But, sooner
or later, there comes comfort of some kind to these amiable creatures
in distress, especially if they are possessed of those cabalistic
things called marriage contracts. We do not say that that comfort comes
always from the grave in the shape of a veritable ghost, but sure it
is that if we could in any case fancy a spirit visiting the earth for
any rational purpose, it would be where a comely widow was ready to
receive it, and warm its cold hands, and wrap the winding-sheet well
round it, and treat it kindly. All which we may leave for suggestion
and meditation, but we demand conviction, and assent, as we proceed,
to set forth that the very next evening after the funeral of Laird
Tammas, the ghaist of David Dempster, despising all secret openings,
and even giving up the privilege of keyholes, went straight into the
house of Rubbledykes, and entered the room where Dorothy was sitting.
Extraordinary enough, no doubt; but not even so much so as the fact we
are about to relate--viz., that Mrs Dorothy was no more astonished at
its appearance before her than she had been when she heard the laird
say that he saw the face of that same spirit at the window; nor did she
on this occasion have recourse to the Bible as an exorcist, by flapping
the leaves of the same, to terrify it away, in the supposition that it
was the devil in disguise. It is very true that she held up her hands,
but then that was only a prelude to the arms being employed in clasping
the appearance to her breast; an embrace which was responded to with
a fervour little to be expected from one of these flimsy creatures.
Nay, things waxed even more enigmatical and ridiculous, for the two
actually kissed each other--a fact which ought to be treasured up as a
psychological curiosity of some use, insomuch as it may diminish the
fear we so irrationally feel at the expected visit of supernatural
beings. But worse and more ridiculous still--
“When had you anything to eat Davie? Ye’ll be hungry.”
“No’ unlikely, Dorothy lass,” answered the wraith; “for I didna like
the cauld fish, and there’s nae cooking apparatus in the Forth.”
“Ye would maybe tak a whang o’ the round o’ beef we had at the laird’s
funeral yesterday?”
“The very thing, woman,” answered the ghaist; “and if ye have a bottle
o’ brandy to wash it down, it will tak awa the cauld o’ the saut water.”
“Twa, an ye like, lad,” responded the apparently delighted widow,
as she ran away to set before the visitor the edible and drinkable
comforts which had been declared so acceptable.
And you may believe or reject the whisperings of our familiar just as
you please, but we have all the justification of absolute veritability
for the fact that this extraordinary guest, or ghaist, if you so
please, sat down before the said round of beef, brandishing a knife in
the one hand and a fork in the other, and looking so heartily purposed
to attack the same, that you might have augured it had not had a chop
since that forenoon when in the embodied state it went down to cool and
wash itself in the sea at Granton. Nor need we be more squeamish than
we have been in declaring at once that it did so much justice to the
meat and the drink, that you might have thought it had been fed for
months on Hecate’s short-commons in Hades. And then a text so ample and
substantial could surely bear a running commentary.
“It would have been o’ nae use, Dorothy. If ye hadna been as gude a
prophetess as Deborah, I might hae been obliged to conceal myself in
England lang enough.”
“It didna need a Deborah, David,” answered she, “to see that nae human
body could stand that cough mair than a month or two. Ye hadna lang to
wait, man; and though ye had had langer, _there_, see, was your comfort
at the end.”
And Dorothy put into the ghaist’s hand the marriage contract--a worldly
thing which seemed to vie with the junket of beef in its influence over
mere spirit, insomuch as he perused the same by snatches between the
bites and draughts, both processes going on almost simultaneously--the
eye fixed on the paper, while a protruding lump in the cheek was in the
act of being diminished.
“A’ right, lass,” was at length the exclamation.
“Ay; but ye maun be gude to me now, Davie,” said she; “for ye see it’s
a’ in my ain power: Rubbledykes is mine, and I hae wrought for’t.”
“And so hae I,” ejaculated the other. “You forget my banishment and
difficulty of living, for I took scarcely any siller wi’ me; and,
mairower, how am I to face the people o’ E’nbro’?”
“And the gude Calvinists o’ the Tron?” added the wife.
Notwithstanding which difficulties the visitor contrived to make a
hearty meal; nor was he contented with the brandy taken during the
time of eating, for with all their spiritual tenderness, there was a
crave for toddy--a request which was complied with by the introduction
of warm water and sugar. How often the tumbler was tumbled up to pour
the last drops, which defied the silver toddy-ladle in the glass, we
are not authorised to say; but we have authority for the assertion that
any man of flesh and blood could not have perpetrated that number of
tumblings without changing almost his nature--that is, being so far
spiritualised as to be entitled to say, in the words of the old song by
Pinkerton--
“Death, begone--here’s none but souls.”
And therefore the spiritual nature of David Dempster, in his new part,
was not so wonderful after all. But the doubt recurs again, as we
proceed to say that Mrs Dorothy Snoddy helped her visitor to bed, nay,
she actually went very blithely into that same bed herself, where they
both slumbered very comfortably till next morning.
We may add that these same doubts were liable to be dispelled by
another fact we have to relate. The visitor, it will be remembered, put
the question to Dorothy, “How was he to meet the people of Edinburgh?”
a question which implied a mortal presence, besides no prescience. We
say this last deliberately, because in place of the fear of meeting
being on his side, it was altogether on theirs. It happened that, two
days after the occurrences we have described, an object bearing the
figure of David Dempster was seen on the Cramond road by a carrier
called Samuel Finlayson, who had had transactions with the dealer in
corduroys--an occasion which had the inevitable effect of raising
Samuel’s bonnet along with the standing hair, besides that of inducing
him to whip his horse to force the animal on, just in the way of
another animal of cognate species under similar circumstances. He, of
course, took the story of a ghaist, all cut and dry, into the city.
On the same day, Andrew Gilfillan saw the same figure on Corstorphine
Hill, and flew past the seat marked “Rest and be thankful,” without
even looking at it. He, too, carried the same tidings. George
Plenderleith encountered the identical object in the village of
Corstorphine busy eating Corstorphine cream--that is, cream mixed with
oatmeal, (a finer kind of crowdy,) and he hastened to Edinburgh with a
speed only to be accounted for by terror. He, too, told his tale; the
effect of all which, added to and inflamed by other reports, was, that
Edinburgh was stirred from the Castle gate to the Palace yett, by the
conviction that David Dempster had returned from the kingdom of death
to this world of life for some purpose which would most certainly come
out; but, in due time, whether with or without a purpose, here it was
proved that ghosts were no dream, and David Hume no philosopher. Many
people sought the Cramond road, and hung about Rubbledykes to get their
scepticism or dogmatism confirmed. The end of these things is pretty
uniform--_res locuta est_; the people began to see where the truth lay,
and the laughter came in due course, to revive the hearts that had been
chilled by fear.
We would be sorry if we were necessitated to end our story at the
very nick of the triumph of vice. Happily, we have something more to
say--nothing less, indeed, than that James Snoddy, the brother of
the laird, raised a process--that is, instituted a suit before the
Court of Session, to have his brother’s contract of marriage with
Mrs Dorothy Dempster annulled and set aside, upon the grounds of
deception, circumvention, and _prava causa_; nor had he any trouble in
getting a decree, for David and his wife made no appearance, neither
could they make any appearance in Edinburgh. Their only resource was
to take advantage of that kind of bail called “leg;” an easy affair,
insomuch as there is no bond required for appearance anywhere. It was
at the time supposed that they had gone to America, that asylum of
unfortunates, where one-half of the people cut the throats of the other
in the name of liberty.
[Illustration]
The Story of the Gorthley Twins.
It was the custom at one time in Edinburgh for the proprietors of large
self-contained houses to give them the names of the properties they
had in the country--hence our Panmure House, Tweeddale Court, and so
forth--and among them there was Gorthley House, of which no vestige now
remains; nay, we are by no means sure where it was situated, beyond
the fact that it was somewhere in the Canongate, but gone as it is
according to the law of change, its name will always be associated
with the law-plea Bruce _versus_ Bruce, which contained the germ of
the little romance we are now to relate in our way. And to begin in
order, we take the state of matters at the time when the plea began.
John Bruce of Gorthley had died, and left a widow and three daughters,
two of whom were twins, and the third was the youngest. The names of
the twins were Sarah and Martha, who at this time were two fine girls
verging upon majority, and as like each other as two white peas; and
surely if we might expect, in this world of strife and contention,
that there should be found real love and friendship anywhere, it might
be in the case of two sisters who had lain so close together for nine
months, and who had drunk their milk at the same kindly fountain of a
doating mother’s breast. But so full is the moral atmosphere of our
fallen world of the spores of hatred, that you may as well try to keep
a cheese from the seeds of green mould as the human heart from the
germs of ill-will. And so it was that these two young ladies hated each
other very heartily, for a reason which we will by and by reveal, to
the astonishment of the reader; and this hatred was the counterpart of
a contention that had embittered the lives of the father and mother,
even up to the time of the former’s death.
All which will be better explained by following the course of events
after the death of Mr Bruce, beginning with a visit on the part of Lady
Gorthley--as she was called according to the custom of the time, when
titles were held in such regard that the common people even forged
them for the great--along with her favourite daughter, Martha, to the
office of Mr James Pollock, the agent for the family. That her ladyship
was bent upon some enterprise of considerable moment might have been
guessed from the look of her face, which had that mysterious air about
it belonging to secrecy, nor less from that of the daughter; and no
one could have doubted that, whatever they were bent upon, the other
twin, Sarah, was not to be let up to the secret. Perhaps the time of
the visit to the writer was opportune, insomuch as Sarah had gone, as
she had said, with her cousin, George Walkinshaw, advocate, to take a
stroll by the back of St Leonard’s as far as “the Cat Nick,” and come
home by the Hunter’s Bog; which couple, we may also say, had their
secret too, in addition to their love affair, if that secret was not
connected with the very same subject we have referred to as that which
divided the family. Be all that as it might, we are going right along
with the facts of the plea when we set forth that in a very short time
Lady Gorthley and Martha were seated each on a chair in the writing
office of the said agent, Mr Pollock, and the very first words that
came out of her ladyship’s mouth were these--
“Has Sarah or her cousin called upon you since the death of Gorthley?”
by which she meant, according to the custom of the time, her own
husband.
“They are even at this moment in the other room, madam,” said he, with
a lawyer’s smile on his face.
“Indeed,” said her ladyship, with an expression of both surprise and
anger. “Why, she told me an hour ago that she was going to take a walk
by the ‘Cat Nick.’”
“And so she has,” added the writer, still smiling, “for my door may not
be inappropriately so called in the circumstances?”
“Only, I presume,” said the lady, “I am not, I hope, to be included
among the cats. I will wait until you have learned what the impertinent
girl has got to say, and then you will have time to hear me and Martha.”
“I already know that,” said he; “but, as I believe our conversation is
about finished, I will despatch them in a few seconds, and then return
to hear your ladyship’s commands.”
“But you will say nothing of our being here.”
“The never a word, madam,” said he, adding to himself as he went away,
“I don’t want a battle of the cats in my office at least; they do best
when they put the cheese into the hands of the ----,” and he did not
add the word monkey, insomuch as it looked personal.
“There, you see, Martha, the gipsy is determined to stand by her
rights,” was the remark of her ladyship after Mr Pollock had left the
room.
“But we’ll beat her off, mother,” rejoined Martha, with a spirit which
Mr Pollock or any other lawyer might have admired; “and,” continued
Martha, with a smile, “we will say nothing about the _strawberry_.”
“Nothing, dear,” rejoined the mother; “that strawberry is worth all the
lands of Gorthley.”
Of which enigmatical strawberry they said no more; but that is no
reason why we should not say something of it when the proper time
comes, of which, by the rules of our art, we are the best judges.
Meanwhile Mr Pollock, having despatched the other feline, returned.
“And now, madam,” said he, as he took his seat, “I am ready to hear
you.”
“You know, Mr Pollock,” resumed her ladyship, “that the entail of
Gorthley provides that the property shall go to the eldest heir female
in the event of there being no heir male.”
“We all know that, madam,” said the writer; “and if we had any doubt of
it a certain paper in that green box there would very soon clear up our
vision. But the question is, which of the two young ladies, Sarah or
Martha, first saw the light of day?”
“No question at all,” rejoined the lady. “Martha was the first-born.”
“Yes, madam, I know, and knew before, that that is your opinion; but
you are perhaps not aware that Gorthley himself told me, some time
before he died, that Sarah was the first-born; and so we have here, so
far as the testimony goes, one witness against another.”
“And what knew he about it?” retorted she, sharply. “He was not present
at the birth to see; while I fancy you won’t deny I was.”
Whereupon Mr Pollock, getting into the mistake that her ladyship was
drolling, and being a droll himself, said, laughing, “Why, madam, no
man could deny the necessity of your being present any more than in the
case of Girzel Jamphrey, who said to the people who were pressing on to
see her burnt as a witch on the sands at Dundee, ‘You needna be in sic
a hurry; there will be nae sport till I come.’”
Whereat Lady Gorthley tightened the strings she had allowed to get
loose.
“It’s not a matter to joke about, sir,” she said. “Though I am not a
witch, I say, and will maintain, that I am a better witness to the fact
of which of the twins was born first than Gorthley could possibly be.”
“Still, madam,” continued the writer, “I fear it is only a comparison
between the value of two ciphers; the one may look bigger than the
other, but each is equal to nothing. It is true that we men don’t
know much of these things, yet--I beg pardon, the subject is a little
delicate--we know that when a lady bears twins she doesn’t take the
first and mark it before she bears the second; and then if she doesn’t
mark it in the very nick of time, it’s of no use, because the two
babies get mixed in the bath, as an Irishman would say, and their being
so like as one strawberry to another, no one can say that the one is
not the other, or the other not the one.”
At which mention of the word strawberry, Lady Gorthley looked to
Martha, and Martha looked to her, and they seemed puzzled.
“But however all that may be,” continued the lady, “what can you say to
the evidence of Peggy Macintosh, the nurse, who will swear that Martha
came first into the world?”
“I cannot answer that question,” said he, with the caution of his
profession, “until I see Mrs Macintosh and examine her. There is also
Jean Gilchrist, one of the servants, who was present, I have her to
examine also, and then we will see where the truth lies. Oh! but I
forgot there is Mrs Glennie, the midwife, the woman whose word will go
farthest, because she had a better _causa scientiæ_.”
“I know nothing about Latin,” rejoined her ladyship angrily; “but as
for Mrs Glennie, she’s dead years ago.”
“Ah, indeed,” said Mr Pollock, “if that is true we will have only the
nurse and the servant for witnesses, and if they oppose each other,
the one for Sarah and the other for Martha, and as it is true that
you always treated Martha as the eldest, and Gorthley always insisted
on Sarah as being the first-born, we will have an undecidable case, a
thing that never occurred in Scotland before, perhaps not in the world,
for you know Solomon would not allow any impossibility in deciding the
case of the baby with the two mothers. But, madam, allow me to say,
that as your husband, Mr Bruce, left directions that I, as agent for
the family, should get Sarah served heir, and as you insist upon that
being done for Martha, it will be necessary that you employ a man of
business of your own, so that we may fight the battle fair out.”
“Well,” said the lady with an expression of bitterness in her face
not much in harmony with her words, “since Gorthley has left the
continuance of the strife as a legacy to his widow and children, I
shall go to Mr Bayne as my agent, and authorise him to protect the
rights of Martha, and fight it to the bitter end--bitter, I mean, for
Sarah Bruce, who will never be Lady Gorthley.”
And with these words she left, accompanied by Martha, directing their
steps to the office of Mr Bayne, who, as her ladyship’s private agent,
knew very well of this most strange contention which had so long been
maintained in Gorthley House. Nor, probably, was he displeased at it,
any more than Mr Pollock had been. Gorthley estate was a large cheese,
the cats were fierce, and there was plenty for even two monkeys, so he
listened attentively to her ladyship’s statement that the nurse, Mrs
Macintosh, would swear in favour of Martha, but she said never a word
about Jean Gilchrist.
“The nurse’s evidence will go a great way, madam,” said he, “seeing the
midwife is dead; but it will be satisfactory if Mrs Macintosh could
condescend upon some mark which she noticed immediately at the time of
the birth, for the two young ladies are really so like each other now
I often confound them, nay, they confound me so that we cannot very
well imagine how they could be distinguished when brought together soon
after birth.”
“Look here, Mr Bayne,” said the lady in a whispering way, as if she
were to reveal something wonderously mysterious, “look here, sir,”--
And taking off Martha’s cloak and turning up the kerchief that covered
her neck and the top of her shoulders, she said, “Do you see that?”
The writer complied by a pretty narrow inspection of a very pretty neck
of (a strawberry being in question) the appropriate colour of cream.
“A very decided mark of a strawberry,” said he; “and, really if it were
a proof that Martha has the right to succeed to Gorthley, it might be
said to be the most beautiful beauty spot that a young lady could
bear. How comes that mark to be there?”
“Why,” replied the lady, “Gorthley threw a strawberry at me when I was
in the way, you know, and thus made a mother’s mark, as they call it,
just as if he had intended to point out the true heir; and you know the
Scotch say that these marks are lucky.”
“But you forget, madam,” replied the man of the law, who did not
believe in special providences, except in special cases, when he
received payment of his accounts. “You forget that Gorthley was against
Martha, so that if he had had any intention in the matter, it must
rather have been to make a blot; besides, our judges might probably say
that the mark, for aught they knew, was intended to show that Martha
was not the heir; in short, unless we can identify the mark as having
been seen on the first-born, I fear, though it is very pretty, it will
do us no good.”
“But Mrs Macintosh can do that,” replied the lady.
“Ah! you have hit the mark now,” said he; “and I will see Mrs
Macintosh, and any other witnesses who can speak to the point.”
And so having, after some more conversation, despatched his two
clients, Mr Bayne proceeded that same evening to the residence of Mrs
Peggy Macintosh, whom he found very busy spinning, little prepared for
a visit from a man of the law, with a powdered wig on his head, and a
gold-headed cane in his hand,--an apparition which even the wheel could
not resist, for it stopt its birr instantly, as if through fear.
“Mrs Macintosh,” said Mr Bayne, as he took a seat alongside of Peggy,
“do you remember having been present at the birth of Mrs Bruce’s twins?”
“Indeed, sir, and I was,” answered she, “and a gey birth it was.”
“And could you tell which was which when the infants were born?”
“Weel, sir,” answered Peggy, “if you will tell me which is the which
you mean, I’ll try to satisfy ye if I can?”
“Why, I mean, which was Sarah and which Martha?” continued the writer.
“How could I tell ye that, sir,” answered Peggy, with a look of true
Scotch complacency, “when the bairns werena christened?”
The writer, acute as he was, was a little put out, but he rallied.
“Why, Peggy, you surely understand what I mean; did you not know the
child which was afterwards called Sarah from that which was afterwards
called Martha?”
“I would have liked to have seen you try that, sir,” was again the
answer. “How the deil--I beg pardon, sir--was I to ken what they were
to be ca’ed when their names werena even fixed by the father and mother
themselves?”
“I see you don’t understand me, Mrs Macintosh,” continued Mr Bayne, who
had got a Scotch witness on his line.
“I think it’s you that doesna understand me,” retorted Peggy.
“Look here,” continued Mr Bayne, smiling, “you know Sarah Bruce and
Martha Bruce?”
“Ay, when they’re thegither,” replied Peggy, “and they tell me their
names; but just put them an ell or twa asinder, and I’ll defy the
horned Clootie himsel to say which is which.”
“Worse and worse,” muttered the writer. “Look you, Peggy, was there no
mark on either of the children by which you could know it?”
“Ay was there,” replied the woman; “but we’re just where we were; for,
whether the strawberry was upon the ane or the ither, or the ither or
the ane, is just what I want you, since you’re a man o’ the law, and
weel skilled in kittle points, to tell me.”
“Worse even yet,” muttered the discomfited precognoscer.
“But I can mak the thing as plain as the Shorter Catechism,” continued
she, with a sharp look, which revived the sinking hopes of Mr Bayne.
“Mrs Glennie that night was in a terrible fluster, for she began
to see that there was likely to be mair bairns than she bargained
for--twins, if no may be trins; so Jean Gilchrist was brought up to
help in addition to mysel. Then the first are cam’ in a hurry, the
mair by token it kenned naething o’ the warld it was coming into, and
Mrs Glennie pushed it into my hands. ‘There will be anither, Peggy,’
said she, ‘and look gleg;’ but there was only flannel for ane; and I
gave the wean to Jean to wash, while I ran to get happins. I was back
in less than five minutes; and, just as I was entering, ‘Here’s the
other ane,’ said Mrs Glennie. I took it frae her, and gave it to Jean,
and took frae her the ane she had washed, in order to wrap it, and so
I did; but before I was dune I saw Jean wasna doing the thing as she
ought; so I gave her the ane I had, and I took hers to wash it better;
but before it was dune Mrs Glennie cried to me to come to help her with
the lady; so I put my bairn into Jean’s arms alang side o’ the ither;
and when I had finished with the lady I took the last ane frae Jean
again; but before I had completed the dressing o’t Jean cried out,
‘This bairn is deein’.’ ‘You’re a fule,’ said I, ‘give it to me;’ and
so she did. Then I ran and got some cordial, and poured it down the
throat o’ the creature. By this time Jean had hers upon the settee, and
I laid mine alang side o’t; but in a little time the mither was crying
to see the weans; and Mrs Glennie took the ane, and I took the ither,
and showed her them. Then Mrs Glennie took mine away to lay it down on
the settee again; and I took hers and laid it down by the side o’ its
sister. That’s how it was, sir, and sure I am naething can be plainer.”
“But what about the strawberry?” said Mr Bayne.
“Nane o’ us saw that till the bairns began to be mixed,” was the
answer; “and then they were changed, and changed again sae aften that
my head ran round, and I lost a’ count.”
“But haven’t you said to Lady Gorthley that the mark was on the
first-born?” asked Mr Bayne.