In a public-house in the Saltmarket of Glasgow there had been a
leak in a barrel of spirits which stood in a dark corner inside
the counter. The whisky was pure and unreduced as it came from the
distillery. Before being retailed it would have been mixed with
water in certain proportions, according, to the price labelled on
the fancy-painted casks ranged along the wall, to which it would
have been partly transferred on the day after its arrival. As it
happened, however, that particular barrel was not to be sold. An old
spigot had got loose during the night, and the pot-boy who opened
the shop waded into what he thought was water instead of the thick
coating of sawdust generally covering the floor. The shop was dark,
and the boy got a stump of candle and lighted it, to have a search
into the cause. The smell might have enlightened him. Behind the
counter the floor was covered with escaping whisky. The boy crouched
down and poked the candle-stump in under the barrel, and at the same
moment was burnt by some of the melted grease. His fingers were of
most importance to him, and he dropped the candle with a howl. If
the whisky had been gunpowder, it could scarcely have put him out
of the shop more quickly. There was a blaze and a roar, and then an
explosion, and the boy had scarcely reached the opposite side of the
street, with more burns than the candle had inflicted, when the whole
shop was in flames.
The land of houses above the shop was a high one, and crowded in
every flat with families of the poorest. Before these unhappy inmates
were well aware of the calamity the flames and smoke had burst
through the ceiling of the shop, and into the stair, thus cutting
off the only means of escape. Then followed a scene exactly like
that which happened in our own Canongate, when a maker of fireworks
had his shop blown up about his ears. The terrified inmates gathered
at the windows shrieking for help—those in the lower flats being
gradually forced upwards by flame and smoke. In a few seconds beds
and mattresses began to fly out at the windows of the adjoining
houses, and these were held up by the eager and excited crowd below
to break the fall of those leaping from the high windows. Some were
killed on the spot, many were injured, but a great number were
successfully caught, scarcely the worse of the fall. At one of the
top windows two women stood in desperation and despair. Though living
in the same land, and possibly on the same flat, they were strangers
to each other till that moment. One had a child of five clinging to
her, white and speechless with terror, and this woman was a poor,
hard-working seamstress, a year or two widowed, and having nothing
but her needle to depend on for support. The other was Bet Cooper, as
bold and irrepressible a thief as ever infested Glasgow.
“We’ll have to jump—it’s the only chance,” said Bet, addressing the
terrified dressmaker. Bet was scared and awed herself, but her terror
had not the effect, as in the person beside her, of rendering her
limbs perfectly powerless.
The poor dressmaker shook her head, and feebly moaned out something
about the child clinging to her.
“If my wee Mary was only safe I wadna care for mysel’,” she
hysterically exclaimed at last.
“Then throw her down—they’ll catch her safe enough,” said Bet with
energy.
“I couldna dae’t—ye couldna dae’t yoursel’ if she was your ain
bairn,” sobbed the poor mother.
“Then I’ll do it for you, if you like?” volunteered Bet.
“Oh, no, no!” screamed the mother, and the child echoed the terrified
cry, which was faintly caught and responded to by the anxious crowd
watching them and urging them from below.
“Then I’ll take her in my arms and jump with her?” said Bet
generously. “If I am killed, she’ll fall soft on top of me and be
saved.”
The perfect antipodes of each other in character and training, these
two women were for the moment drawn together by the warm humanity
which makes the whole world kin. The weaker spirit, the half-fainting
dressmaker, clung to the bold thief, and mingled her tears with those
of Bet as trustfully as if she had been the purest in the land. It is
doubtful if she would have consented even then, but a great cloud of
smoke and flames sweeping and roaring in their direction hastened the
decision. The child screamed and shrank towards the outstretched arms
of Bet, and the mother let her go with an effort.
“You’ll take care of her?” she tremulously said, as she kissed the
child’s white face over and over again.
“I’ll take care of her,” said Bet, shortly. “Now stand back a bit,
and let me jump.”
She grasped the clinging child high over her shoulder and sprang into
the air, while a sympathising roar from the crowd below greeted the
action. Four men were holding aloft one of the beds, and Bet sank
into the yielding mass almost as softly as if she had descended only
her own height. The child was breathless and a little shaken, but
quite sensible. Bet sprang to her feet and waved the rescued child in
triumph in the air towards the mother far above, though the ringing
cheer rising around must have carried to her the glad tidings even
before Bet’s cry rang out.
“She’s safe! Now jump! jump for your life!” was Bet’s eager
exclamation. But the mother still clung to the window in powerless
terror, and finally motioned to those below that she would try to
escape by the roof. Her gesture was not understood at the moment, or
a dozen voices would have been raised to warn her that that means had
already been tried in vain. The building by that time was filled with
smoke, and the unhappy mother had never got farther than the passage
leading to the stair landing. Her body was found there, scarcely
scorched, with the features calm and placid as in a gentle slumber.
Little Mary, the rescued child, when shown the still form, cried
out joyfully, “Mother’s only sleeping.” So she was, but it was that
blissful rest which knows no troubled dreams, the last and longest
that is sent to weary humanity.
Bet took the child with her for that night. She had no lack of
acquaintances to give her shelter, but Mary appeared to be without
a friend in the world. Bet was not easily moved, but somehow that
last speech of the poor mother, and her appealing gaze as she uttered
it, had got imprinted in her memory—“You’ll take care of her?” Bet
fancied she heard the words still, and determined to keep the child
under her own eye till its nearest relatives should be sought out and
found. Bet was then comparatively young—still under thirty, but she
had never had a child of her own, and it was a queer sensation to her
to be treading the streets with that little innocent one’s hand so
trustfully reposing in her own.
The talk of the child was also different from anything Bet had ever
listened to; it actually seemed for the time that Bet was the child,
and Mary the woman. With a gentleness quite new to her, Bet tried to
explain to Mary that there was a possibility of her mother sleeping
on and never waking, an idea which Mary utterly derided, though in
the end she said contentedly—
“If mother doesn’t wake, you’ll be my mother instead?”
“No, no; that would never do,” said Bet hurriedly, and with some
agitation. “I’m not good enough, and it wouldn’t be allowed.”
“I think you’re _very_ good,” said Mary, with the air of a judge.
“You saved me from the fire. Oh, what a jump it was! Won’t you let
me sleep with you to-night, and cuddle close in your arms, if mother
isn’t back?”
Bet wasn’t sure, and she mumbled out something to that effect, which
Mary chose to take for consent to the arrangement.
They made their way, thus talking and considering, to the house of an
acquaintance of Bet—a thief, of course, like herself, and almost as
well known. Bet was careful to keep the child apart from her friends,
that their strange talk might not reach or contaminate its ears, and
early in the evening undressed Mary with her own hands to put her
into the bed under the slates which had been appropriated to her use.
She tucked the child in very tenderly, and got a hearty kiss for
her pains, and was then about to leave the little closet, when Mary
called her back with the words—
“But I haven’t said my blesses.”
“Jerusalem! and what is that?” said Bet, for a moment puzzled.
“Oh, you just sit there, and put your hands together like mine, while
I say them like a little angel,” said Mary, and to teach her new
pupil she illustrated the matter by getting out of the bed-clothes
and kneeling beside Bet, clasping her hands and beginning to repeat
her prayers. Bet’s attitude—expressive more of astonishment than
anything—not quite pleasing her, Mary had to stop and place her new
friend’s hands in the same position as her own; and, that being
adjusted, she proceeded—
“God bless mother; bless Bet, my new mother; bless everybody—for
amen. Good-night. This night I lay me down to sleep; I give my soul
to Christ to keep. If I should die and never wake, I pray the Lord my
soul to take. For amen. Good-night. Our Father which art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name. Kingdom come. Thy will be done—earth as ’tis
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we
forgive those trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil. For amen. Good-night.”
Bet was hushed and subdued, and the second kiss which she imprinted
on the child’s lips was very near being a tearful one. Possibly the
simple utterances of the little one had awakened in her breast some
memories of her own childhood, long dormant; or perhaps the pure
radiance of the child’s innocence was showing her the darkness of her
own heart and life. At any rate Bet left the little closet very bad
company for her friends, and was more than once twitted by them upon
her solemnity. Bet had begun to think; but as yet the only tangible
idea that came to her out of that whirl was expressed in the words—
“I wish the bairn’s friends would not turn up. I think I should like
to keep her myself.”
Next day inquiry proved that Bet’s “bairn” was literally without
friends. Her mother had been in receipt of parochial aid on account
of the child and her own poverty, and the parochial authorities
could prove beyond question that she had been friendless and alone.
Under these circumstances the glad wish welled up naturally to Bet’s
lips—she would take it; she would be a mother to the orphan, and seek
help from no parochial board. Alas! Bet forgot in the warmth of her
newborn love that all her past life was against her. What kind of
guardian for a tender and innocent child was a woman who had spent
most of her life in open defiance of the law, when not actually in
prison?
The truth only dawned upon Bet when those who had the power evaded
her request by saying that they would consider the matter, make
inquiries, and let her know. Meantime the child was allowed to remain
with Bet, and, as she slowly sauntered home, the thought rose in her
mind—
“They’ll take her from me; they’ll never allow me to keep her. I’m
too bad; too well known. They’ll ask the police about me, and take
her away to-morrow. And they’re right. I’m not fit to bring her
up—not unless I make a change.”
That was the thought which pulled Bet up, and made her pace the
streets for hour after hour before returning to her charge.
Change!—was it possible for her to change sufficiently to bring up
a child to a good and useful life? Bet was afraid that it was not.
But then her very boldness and seeming callousness covered a strong
will and a passionate nature, which, once roused to love, loved with
head-strong impetuosity.
The more imminent the separation from the child seemed, the more
Bet longed to keep her, and the result of her long thinking on the
plainstones of Glasgow was that she went home to nestle down beside
Mary, saying to herself, “I’ll try! I’ll try, for her sake!”
Her case, however, was desperate, so Bet was awake very early in the
morning, and had Mary up and dressed and out into the cool morning
air before the bells and steam whistles had begun to call the factory
folks and ironworkers from their homes. Bet’s intention was to make
her way to Edinburgh, but as she was fearful of her destination being
suspected, and herself pursued, she took a very different route
when leaving the city. She had not a penny in her pocket, and, as a
matter of fact, had to beg her way, by a long and circuitous route,
to the capital. We were duly informed of her disappearance, and,
though there was no special charge against her, we should doubtless
very soon have had her in our hands had Bet resumed her own line
of business. But this did not happen. Bet, while begging at a farm
outside the city, had been told to go and work, and replied that
she was willing to do so there and then. This resulted in her being
employed on the place for nearly a month. At the end of that time she
had a little money to draw, and entered the city to have a struggle
for honesty and a new life.
I am afraid that Bet’s resolve would have all gone to the wall
through the taint of crime and the power of hunger had she not
chanced to meet an old prison companion who had been struggling in
the same way for some months. This woman not only gave temporary
shelter to the wanderers, but introduced Bet to a lady who, with
some of her friends, had formed a kind of private prisoners’ aid
society. Mrs Colbrun—as I shall name her, knowing her aversion to
publicity—heard Bet’s story, which, probably for the first time in
Bet’s life, was a truthful one in every detail, and, with many a
warning that the new life would be full of hardship and temptation,
agreed to give her a start by recommending her among her friends as
help in rough house-work. Thus Bet was secured from absolute want,
and, as she was a strong-bodied woman and eager to do her best, it
was not long before she had a regular round of houses employing her
at stated intervals at washing and cleaning, besides occasional
jobs from outsiders. During the first few years of this life Bet
had many a hard struggle and sore temptation; but then the innocent
prattle and loving caresses of Mary made all smooth and endurable.
Bet, I should have observed, was by no means a good-looking woman.
She had an evil look which was very much against her in her new line.
People often employed her with reluctance on that account, and got
rid of her as soon as possible, so with all her willingness she was
always very poor. Her life was a lonely one, and I have no doubt
she often asked herself with bitterness whether the change from her
former reckless course was altogether a good one. As Mary grew in
years and cleverness, however, and became more of a companion to
her protector, her gentle influence gradually asserted itself, and
chased many of these clouds from Bet’s half-savage mind. When she
was just twelve Mary insisted upon being taken from school and set
to work, and through Mrs Colbrun was apprenticed to dressmaking in
a big establishment in Princes Street. Mary did not grow up a great
beauty, but she had a quiet, engaging manner, and an artlessness
and simplicity which made her a favourite. She remained in that
establishment for six or seven years, by the end of which time the
relative positions of Bet and her had changed, for Bet’s health
had become uncertain, and Mary’s wage formed almost their sole
support. Mary had forgotten many of the incidents of her youth, but
singularly enough, the scene at the fire was imprinted on her memory
as vividly as the day after it had occurred. She often spoke of it,
and speculated on how different both their lives might have been but
for that great calamity. She never really understood Bet’s shudder at
the thought, for Mary did not know that her second mother had been a
thief, and saved from a life of crime by her own innocent prattle. We
are all children alike in that respect, and never know a tithe of the
good we have done.
At this time came the grand turning-point in Mary’s life, for the
son of one of the partners of the firm, who acted as cashier, fell
in love with the quiet, lady-like Mary Cooper, passing over beauties
in dozens to do so, and, after a long course of opposition from his
parents, which as usual only strengthened his passion, succeeded in
so adjusting matters that Mary consented to become his wife. When the
matter was settled Bet looked as if she did not know whether to cry
or rejoice, and, I believe, did a little at both.
“How am I ever to fit you to go among such grand folks,” she said in
manifest distress.
“You have been fitting me all my life,” said Mary, with a bright
look and a soft embrace, which she had generally found effectual in
banishing all objections.
“That’s all very well,” answered Bet, only half mollified; “but where
is your outfit to come from? You must have dresses, and no end of
things. Ten or twenty pounds would not be too much. Only think! if
you went among them in your poor rags, wouldn’t they sneer at you all
your life after?”
“I don’t know; I never thought of that,” was Mary’s simple rejoinder,
“but so long as Herbert does not sneer at me I shall never care for
any one else. He will shield me from all trouble.”
“Ay, you’re like every one else in love, you see nothing but sunshine
before you,” dryly returned Bet, “but it’s possible that even he
would turn round and sneer at your former poverty if I allowed him to
provide your outfit, as he offered to do. ‘Nothing of the kind,’ I
said, quite sharp; ‘Mary will provide all that herself.’ But though I
said that to look independent, I can’t for the life of me tell where
the money’s to come from. I have not one pound to rub on another.”
“Don’t distress yourself about that, mother dear,” said Mary, with
another nestling kiss; “for if he cannot love me for ever without
a paltry dress or two, his love isn’t worthy the name. And if his
devotion is to change to sneers, all the outfits in the world would
not prevent it. So just let the matter rest. I’ll take all the risk.
He knows we are poor in everything but a good name, so where is the
shame?”
Mary thought she had effectually settled the difficulty; but Bet
continued to harp on the same theme. It was an awkward position
certainly. There was Mary living in a house of one room and a
closet, in a not very choice locality, and her affianced in one of
the biggest villas in the Grange. The inequality of their positions
cropped out painfully whenever he chanced to visit the humble home,
and Bet was in such a feverish state of distress over her poverty
that she would have made any sacrifice for a little temporary
grandeur. As the time drew near when Mary was to leave her for
another’s care, Bet’s uneasiness increased. She had rashly pledged
herself to provide Mary’s outfit, and was now further from that than
ever. It is difficult to analyse her feelings so as to account for
all her actions; but I suppose her mind had got into such a morbid
state that she was scarcely responsible for her own actions.
At this critical juncture Bet’s old friend and adviser, Mrs Colbrun,
sent for her and Mary to congratulate them on the approaching event,
and make some small present to the bride. What the present was I have
no recollection, but it was something which led Mrs Colbrun and Mary
to leave the room for a few minutes.
Bet had often been left with the free range of the whole house before
with no evil result. In the room in which she was now left there
stood a writing table, one drawer of which was open, showing quite a
pile of bank notes and other money.
Bet fought valiantly with the temptation till Mrs Colbrun was
actually crossing the lobby to re-enter the room, when the old
thieving nature struggled uppermost, and Bet, with one swift movement
of her hand, had possessed herself of a bunch of the notes, and
concealed them with magical celerity about her person.
The remainder of her stay in the house was torture to Bet, not
only on account of the fear of discovery, but because she had a
conscience, and could not disguise even to herself the dastardly act
she had committed in robbing a benefactor.
They got away at last, but Bet was nearly an hour at home before she
ventured to bring out the notes, which she did with a shaking hand,
telling Mary they were for her marriage outfit, which she had better
go and purchase forthwith.
Perhaps it was the tone in which the strange request was made, or the
guilty look which accompanied the offer of the money, or possibly
sheer astonishment at Bet possessing such a sum, that roused Mary’s
suspicions; but she had scarcely taken the notes and counted them
when a chill thought fell on her heart.
“Where did you get so much money, mother dear?” she tremulously
asked. “Did Mrs Colbrun give it you?”
“No, no! ask no questions, but away you go and spend it to the best
advantage,” hurriedly responded Bet, in a strange voice.
Mary stared at her for a minute, then began to tremble violently, and
finally sat down with the notes in her hand, and burst into tears.
Thoroughly alarmed, Bet sprang up and tried to soothe the young
girl, but the first words which Mary could articulate stabbed her
through.
“Mother, dear,” she cried, clasping the guilty woman in her arms, and
trying in vain to get a clear look into the shrinking eyes, “tell
me true and plain. There was a drawer in Mrs Colbrun’s room with a
pile of bank notes in it. I saw them. You didn’t—oh, mother! forgive
me for the horrible thought!—but say you didn’t take them—steal
them—from Mrs Colbrun.”
“I didn’t” was shaped on Bet’s lips, but the words stuck in her
throat, and the guilty look on her face, and her abashed attitude
as she shrank before the accusing eyes gave the lie to the husky
response.
“Oh, mother, how could you?—you have ruined us!” was all Mary could
utter, but after an agonised pause she sprang up with startling
energy, and said—
“I must take them back! I shall never allow her to be robbed!”
“And send me to prison for ten or twenty years?” cried Bet in
reproach. “No; rather throw them into the fire. That will hide all.”
“I shall not! Mother, you are mad—you are not in your senses to
propose such a thing. It would be robbery just the same, whether we
use the notes or not, if we do not restore them. I shall take them
back, but try to give them in a way that will not criminate you. Yes,
whatever happens, you must be safe.”
Mary hurried on her things and left the house, amid the feeble
protests of Bet. She had not been out of the place many minutes
when I knocked at the door and entered. Mrs Colbrun had missed the
notes immediately on the departure of Bet and Mary, and, shocked and
indignant, had brought word to the Central. It needed but a word or
two regarding Bet’s past life to convince me that she was the thief,
and I took the address and went there direct. Bet, however, was bold
as brass, and denied all knowledge of the notes, and officiously
assisted me to search the house for them. I left her at last baffled,
but not convinced, and made my way to Mrs Colbrun’s for consultation
and advice. It was nearly dark when I reached the place, which was at
the outskirts of the city, and on a very dark and badly-lighted road.
As I approached the place I fancied that I saw a skulking figure
cross the road and move round towards the back of the house. It was
Mary, who had loitered about vainly trying to think of some mode of
restoring the notes which should not re-act upon her benefactor, Bet.
At length she had conceived the project of getting round to the back,
raising the window of Mrs Colbrun’s room, and tossing the notes into
some corner. Quite ignorant of these facts, I followed the figure;
saw the dark window stealthily approached, and then was witness to an
attempt to force up the window, which chanced to be fastened on the
inside. When this had continued for a short time I slipped rapidly up
behind, and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She uttered a scream
of terror, and instantly dropped the bunch of notes, which I as
quickly picked up. I took her round to the front door, and introduced
her to Mrs Colbrun, who besought me, as I have seldom been pleaded
with, to let poor Mary go, “and say no more about it.”
That was quite beyond my power, and Mary—who had not a word to say
in her defence, and even faintly admitted the identity of the stolen
notes—was taken away and locked up.
No sooner did Bet hear of the capture than she appeared in a frenzied
state at the office, tearing her hair and altogether conducting
herself like a maniac, and loudly declared that she and not Mary was
the thief. I had known so many cases in which a mother sacrificed
all, even her reputation, to save her offspring from prison, that I
felt certain this was but another instance of the kind, and we paid
little attention to Bet’s story.
The same day Mary’s affianced appeared at the office, and was allowed
to see the prisoner, when he besought her in the most piteous accents
to declare the truth and save her name, but to all this Mary would
say nothing. At the trial she was informed that her sentence would be
lighter if she pled guilty, and “Guilty” she pled accordingly.
Her sentence was one month’s imprisonment, but the moment it was
pronounced she turned to her affianced, who had been seated behind
her, and whispered with a face positively radiant—
“Now, I may speak, Herbert. Yes, I am innocent.”
Strenuous efforts were immediately made to quash the conviction and
have Mary released, but the law gives forth no uncertain sound on the
point, and Mary served the full month like an ordinary malefactor.