Jim’s mother touched me on the arm as I ushered him into the Police
Court for the first time. I remember it all as well as if it had
happened yesterday. She had been loitering about the lobby, tearful
and oppressed, but was roused as by an electric shock when “James
Hutson!” was shouted out, and echoed through the corridor. She
gripped my arm as I was hurrying him in at the door, and the whole
arm attached to those rigid fingers shook as with an ague. The
tearful eyes brimmed over freely, and the parted lips moved, but for
a moment no sound came forth.
“Jim was aye a guid laddie,” she at length chokingly articulated.
“He’s been led away; he was never meant for a thief. Save him!
make it licht for him, and he’ll never come back here. Oh, Maister
M^cGovan, he’s the only ane left me—the only ane oot o’ six.”
I did not hear any more, for I was in a hurry, and the roll that
morning rather long, but the appealing face, the tears, and hurriedly
breathed outpourings of that poor mother’s heart, followed me
right into the court-room. Frantic and voluble appeals under such
circumstances are common, but this one was quiet, sudden, and
overpowering. I looked at the prisoner for the first time with
special interest. He was a young lad of sixteen or so, rather
strongly built, and manly-looking, but, of course, hanging his
head in shame as they generally do the first time. The case was a
very simple one. Jim was an apprentice plumber in a big workshop;
quantities of brass-fittings, copper wire, and tin had been missed,
and at last I was set to watch the workers. I followed several
innocent ones for a time, but at length came to Jim. I should have
overlooked him, for he had rather an innocent face, but for a certain
bulkiness about his body. Jim did not go straight home, but took a
certain broker’s on the way. He went through to the back shop, and I
surprised him there in the act of unloading. The broker, of course,
protested perfect innocence, but I took them both. The broker got
off by some means, and Jim now stood there alone. The charge was
theft, and confined to the articles taken with him, though that did
not cover a hundredth part of his pilferings. Was he guilty?
“Yes sir, guilty,” was Jim’s hurried answer, with his head lower on
his breast.
“Hae mercy on him!” rang out from the benches behind in the
unmistakable tones of Jim’s mother, as the magistrate paused in
doubt, possibly feeling to send such a fine lad to prison. “Let him
off this time, and he’ll never come back again.”
I was motioned to the side of the magistrate to give my opinion in an
undertone. I did try to make it light for the lad. I said I thought
he had been prompted to the acts by some one who was uncaught, that
his home training had been against such a course, and that he had
never been in court before. But I could not refute the statements of
his employers, that their losses had extended over more than a year,
and been serious indeed. A few moments thought, and the magistrate
spoke out without comment of any kind—“Thirty days.”
There was an impassioned outcry in a woman’s voice, but I did not
turn in that direction, as I did not want to see anything. I hurried
out the prisoner by the side door a moment or two later, and was
again clutched by the mother.
“He’ll come oot waur than he gangs in,” she exclaimed in despairing
accents, and with bitter reproach.
“Exactly, there’s little doubt of that,” I answered with assumed
coolness.
“Is that a just punishment?” she pursued, almost choked with tears,
as she clung to the arm of her son, who now seemed to shrink from her
in shame, and to long for the seclusion of the cells.
“It’s the Nemesis of crime—the chief part of the punishment,” I
returned; “they should think of that before they begin.”
We had to part them by force, and she called me a monster and a
brute, which I don’t think I am, though I did feel a little like one
at that moment.
Whether Jim had any prompter to his first crime, other than poverty
or the desire for tobacco and other luxuries, I never knew. If he
had, the man was probably one of the working plumbers, and possibly
took warning by Jim’s detection and pilfered no more. At the end
of the thirty days his mother was over at the jail door to receive
him with open arms and take him home with her. He promised there, at
the jail gate, that he would have done with crime for ever. I heard
him speak the words, and I believe he sincerely meant to keep the
pledge. But there were two things which neither he nor his mother
calculated upon. The first was that the taint of crime was now upon
him. Who would employ a lad who had been convicted and imprisoned
for theft? The second was still more serious, though at the time it
probably seemed trifling indeed. In prison, Jim had met his fate in
the shape of a young fellow of about his own age, named Joe Knevitt.
Joe was the very antipodes of Jim in nature and disposition, yet a
very strong friendship appears to have sprung up between them. Joe
was sly, cold, cautious, and thoroughly unscrupulous with friend or
foe; Jim was daring, hot-headed, impulsive, and passionate. Joe was
a professional thief by birth and training; Jim was the reverse. Joe
was as cunning a rascal of his age as ever came through my hands, and
could never be limed for any but the most trifling sentences, and
probably did not reveal his real character to his new acquaintance.
When Jim was set at liberty Joe had a week or two to remain in jail,
so they might have been separated for ever but for the taint of crime.
Jim was really not much worse through being in prison, but things
were very much worse for him. He tried to get work, and was
everywhere asked for his character. Sometimes he took courage and
confessed the truth, but when he did he was invariably dismissed
at once without further parley and with marked distrust. Then his
mother scraped together enough money to send him to Glasgow, in the
hope that he would succeed better where he was not known. Jim used
every penny of the money, and tramped back the forty miles in a
half-famishing state. Of course his mother cheered and consoled him,
and slaved for him at her wash-tub without a murmur; but a young lad
must fill up his time in some way. He could not sit all day looking
at his fingers, and he needed a little money if only to keep him in
tobacco. He met Joe Knevitt one day, and from that hour his troubles
seemed at an end; his silence and sullen despair vanished, he was
always cheerful and kind to his mother, and never wanted money. But
how the money was earned and how his time was spent he never could
clearly explain. He was not much in the house, and was never absent
for a night at a time, but his mother was deep in her work and knew
nothing, whatever she may have feared. I daresay she had many a
sorrowful hour, and pleaded and remonstrated with him unceasingly,
for the singular feature of Jim’s case was that his new life did not
harden him against his mother. If he was becoming dissipated and
brutalised, no trace of that was ever expended upon her. With her he
was always subdued and silent or full of promises for the future.
There were thus two influences at work—one dragging him downwards and
the other tugging him back. Joe Knevitt’s proved the stronger, for
when this had gone on for some time Jim was again in my hands. This
time it was for an attempt—the very daring of which almost took my
breath away. I suppose the planning had been done by Joe Knevitt, but
the execution—the lion’s share of the work—fell to Jim.
The place chosen was a clothier’s at the South Side—a shilling-a-week
clubman—whose business premises were the third flat of a land of
houses, the fourth of which was the top. There was not the slightest
chance of getting in unseen by the door, as one part of the flat was
let to a person who was seldom out of the house. The remainder was
locked up when not occupied by the clothier and his band of tailors,
and most of the windows looked to the back. It happened that the
house was a corner one, and after much study and reconnoitering the
intending thieves decided upon a mode of entering which I would
not have risked for all the webs of cloth that ever were woven. A
quiet and very dark Sunday night was chosen for the attempt. The
two got up on the roof of the corner house joining that occupied by
the clothier, and Jim, who had under his coat a long length of rope
wound round his body with which to lower the webs of cloth to his
pal, crept down to the edge of the slates, and loosened with his
practised hand the zinc roan or rain gutter running along the edge of
the slates. This precarious bridge he sloped over the angle to the
window of the clothier’s store-room, a distance of only about twelve
feet, but with a slope on it that would have made anyone shudder had
they been forced to walk that plank against their will. Joe steadied
the top end of the frail bridge, and Jim went sliding down and
across with his life in his hands. He was _seen_ doing it, and the
accidental spectator afterwards assured me that his own hair nearly
stood on end as he saw it done. The passage was accomplished swiftly,
and in safety, but Jim’s difficulties were only begun. He stood on
the window-sill, three storeys from the ground, but tug as he could
the window-sash refused to move. Fancying that it might have been
fastened inside he removed one pane of glass in a fashion of his own,
inserted his arm, and found to his dismay that the window was not
bolted in any way, but only paint-fast. To attempt to move it he knew
would be folly, and yet he could not go back to the opposite roof.
There was only one way out of the fix—to strip off his jacket and
the rope he had brought and try to wriggle through that open pane.
He removed as many of the points of broken glass as he could with
the aid of his jacket, but in doing so let go the end of his rope,
which dropped into the green behind, and left him there isolated and
helpless. He cursed over the loss, doubtless, but quickly began the
wriggling business, and in a few minutes had struggled through—his
shirt sleeves and waistcoat, and even his skin, considerably torn
and damaged in transit. When he was in, and the whole coast clear,
he thought little of the trouble and danger. He passed to the next
room, found the window of that more manageable, and coolly proceeded
to select his plunder. He did not hurry himself, for he had not the
slightest suspicion of having been seen, every window near him being
dark. Having made his selection, he was in the act of tearing up a
web of cloth into strips to replace his lost rope, and lower the
plunder by, when he was startled by a sudden, shrill whistle, at the
far-off end of the green below. He knew the whistle, and what it
meant—danger! but could not conceive why the shrill sound should have
been thrown out at such a time. Joe was surely growing childishly
timid. Jim went to the window, ready opened, and peered out. Not
a soul was in sight. Reassured, he went back to his rope-making,
but had made no progress worth recording, when a loud knock at the
outer door of the house brought him to his feet, with his heart
beating fast with dismay. Only till he heard the door opened and
a rough voice say something about “thieves in the house,” did he
delay. He did not even think of a rope of cloth strips. The hands
of the police were already on the door of the room. He sprang at
the window, remembering as he did so the exact position of the roan
pipe running down outside the house into the drains below. The pipe
was of cast-iron, and fastened to the wall with strong stancheons.
Jim grasped it from his perch on the window-sill, and ran down it
hand under hand as if it had been a rope. It was a feat he would
never have attempted in cold blood. He reached the green just as
the policemen thrust out their heads at the window above and sprang
their rattles. Then he dived for the nearest doorway, but was there
met by a man who had helped to give the alarm, and who collared him
and gave him a hard struggle for liberty. Jim was younger and lighter
than his captor, but he was desperate, and he came off victor, and,
leaving the man almost breathless on the ground, he was off into
hiding as fast as fear and his supple limbs could carry him. The
struggle, however, had taken place near a bright stair-light, and
the vanquished man had a full and clear view of Jim’s features, and
was able to give me, an hour or two later, such a description that I
had little doubt of being able to trace the scared thief. Only _one_
had really been seen at the job, and I was not surprised, on making
inquiries for Joe Knevitt, to hear that he was “away in Glasgow,
and had been there for a week.” The same could not be said of Jim
Hutson, for I found him in his mother’s house demurely kneeling
by the hearthstone, and helping his mother by chopping sticks. He
denied having been out the night before, and his mother with tears
supported his statement—doubtless believing it true—for he might have
waited till she slept before he went out. But I had to take him, and,
of course, he was identified—picked out of a dozen men without a
moment’s hesitation—and locked up. His mother was at the Police Court
next day (in tears, of course), and with her old appeal on her lips—
“Jim was aye a gude laddie; he may be guilty, but he’s been led away.”
I could not listen to her this time, and kept out of her reach. How
could I say a word in favour of him now, when I knew him to keep
company constantly with the worst of my “bairns?” Jim was remitted to
the High Court, where he got a year’s imprisonment. I nipped up Joe
for another affair some time after, so in misfortune they were not
divided.
I have not yet noticed Jim Hutson’s knife. It was at this capture
that I saw it first, when I emptied his pockets at the Central
Office. It was a murderous looking weapon with two blades. The big
blade was at least six inches long, but was not fitted with a spring
back, or Jim would have looked upon it for the last time, as it
is illegal to carry such a knife. Perhaps it would have been well
for Jim if such a confiscation had taken place. The knife was of a
peculiar make, probably foreign, and had a hole drilled through the
buck-horn handle, as for a cord, and most likely had been stolen
from some sailor. Across the buck-horn handle Jim had made two deep
notches with a file, with a cross cut between, forming the letter H.
This knife, after some joking comments by me, was put away with Jim’s
tobacco pipe and other treasures, to be returned to him when his
term expired. But before that time came Jim had done something which
quickened curiously the interest I already felt in his career. One of
the warders had in some way excited the rancour of three prisoners,
and they laid their heads together and recklessly resolved to “pitch
into him.” By a most ingenious plot they managed to get him alone,
and then ferociously attacked him with hammers. Jim, however, had
taken a liking to the man, and, happening to be near, he at once,
with that bull-dog bravery which had always distinguished him, took
the part of the warder. He fought two of them single handed, though a
good deal pounded and hurt in the struggle, and was seized with them,
by mistake, and hurried off to the dark cell. As soon as matters
had been explained by the rescued warder, Jim was brought forth and
handsomely complimented by the governor, and from that day till the
expiry of his sentence treated with marked lenience and favour. I
was over in the jail shortly after this affair, and, chancing to see
Jim among the workers, I took him aside for a word. “Jim,” I said,
putting my hand on his shoulder and speaking with great earnestness,
“you’re in the wrong line entirely. You are just the stuff a good
soldier is made of. Get into that as soon as you are let out. It’ll
be a new life—an honest one—and advancement is sure for you. It’s a
sheer waste of material to have you herding here with these louts.
Rise above them. These cowards are fit for nothing else, but you, you
can be a man if you choose.”
While I spoke I saw his eyes—which were fixed somewhat shame-strickenly
upon the ground—gradually light up. A new possibility had dawned upon
him.
“I think you’re right, sir,” he said at last, very gratefully; then
he added with great firmness—“I’ll enlist whenever I get out.”
He meant to do it, and would have done it, but for his mother. What
fatality prompted her to veto the whole plan?—to abjure him with
tears and clinging love, which were resistless, to remain at home
and not trouble himself about the future while he had her to slave
for him? She shuddered at the idea of her boy—her youngest, and the
last of them all, going into a battle, and recklessly tearing through
showers of bullets and walls of steel, as she knew he would do. But,
could she have looked into the future, as I can now look back on the
past, she would have seen there something more to be dreaded. So Jim
continued to loaf about and live upon his wits, and when Joe Knevitt
joined him, the old practices came as a natural result. I saw Jim
once or twice and tried to reason with him, but his answer was always
the same—
“Mother won’t let me list.”
“Then I’ll have you again soon,” I gravely remarked.
“I can’t help it,” was his cool reply, and I suppose he thought the
event far off. With the confirmed thief it is always some one else
who is to be taken, never himself. Jim had really not over-rated
his cleverness. He had grown more cautious by experience, and might
have eluded me but for his rock a-head—Joe Knevitt. I believe there
was a woman in this rupture—one of those flashy shop girls who sell
cigars and tobacco and flirt with everybody, and whom Joe wanted
entirely to himself; but the ostensible reason was a difference about
their respective shares in the plunder from a certain robbery down
at Greenside which puzzled us not a little. There is a certain style
in every thief’s work. In any kind of job where Jim’s old plumber
experience helped him, he was perfectly at home, and had this affair
shown any trace of that, I should have gone for him at once. But
there was no trace of violence or tearing down of wood-work, or
wrenching or unscrewing. It was a shop, and the door was found locked
as usual when the owner entered it next morning and found the most
valuable part of his stock gone, and about twenty pounds in silver as
well, which he had thought too heavy to take home the night before.
I searched the whole shop _carefully_, and found no trace of the
thieves or clue to their identity; and candidly may now confess that
I suspected the _owner_ was the thief, that for some purpose he had
robbed himself. I was mistaken, of course, for the door had been
opened and locked again with skeleton keys made by Knevitt.
Meanwhile Joe and Jim were quarrelling, and Joe proceeded to settle
the dispute in a fashion of his own. On the second morning after the
robbery, the shop boy in sweeping out the place found a big clasp
knife, which he had not noticed before, in a dark corner behind the
counter. The knife was shown to his master, and finally brought
up to the office to me. The moment it was placed in my hands I
exclaimed—“What! did you find that in the shop? How did I miss it
when I was there? It’s Jim Hutson’s knife. I’ll soon have the thieves
now, and possibly the plunder too.”
Down I went to Jim’s home in College Wynd. He was not in.
“He’s got wark,” his mother explained.
“So I think,” was my dry rejoinder. I looked over the house, and
finally under the bed found a parcel tied up in brown paper.
“He brocht it in last nicht,” his mother simply remarked. “He’s
keeping it to obleege a freend.”
I opened the parcel, and found it contained part of the stolen goods.
I was explaining this to the mother when Jim appeared in working garb
for his breakfast. He changed colour at once, and sat down, or rather
dropped down, into a seat by the fire.
“It’s all up, Jim,” I said with some pity. “I told you I’d have you
soon.”
He stared at me, not in resentment, but with a strange, thoughtful
look in his eyes. “Have I been sold?” he at last inquired, rather
quietly. “Did he—I mean—did anyone betray me?”
“No,” I promptly answered, believing what I said. “Have you your
knife about you?”
He dived his hand into his pocket, and then appeared to reflect.
“You needn’t look there for it,” I remarked. “I’ll find it for you
when we get up to the office.”
“I had it yesterday—I’m sure I had it yesterday,” he said, after a
horrible pause.
“I don’t think so,” I gently observed in correction. “You dropped it
the night before.”
“What! do you mean to say you found it _there_?” he cried, his whole
face becoming white with fury.
“It was found,” I oracularly returned; and then, taking my advice, he
relapsed into silence, and quietly accompanied me.
Of course the mother had to go too, but she was speedily released, as
it was quite evident, from her artless admission to me, that she knew
nothing of the robbery, and her character was above suspicion.
Jim did not deny his knife. He only said occasionally under his
breath—“He has done it! Wait; I’ll give it him back!”
His suspicion, which was probably sound, was that Joe had picked his
pocket of the knife, and then made some errand into the shop, and so
managed to drop the tell-tale article where it was likely to be found.
From these muttered imprecations I guessed that Joe was his partner
in the crime, and went for him as soon as Jim was locked up. An
ordinary thief would have betrayed his pal at once after such
dastardly treatment, but, as I have indicated, there was about Jim
a kind of manliness which scorned such a mean revenge. He remained
absolutely silent regarding Joe’s complicity, and, as that rascal was
cunning enough to take care of himself, we had no evidence against
him, and he was released.
In order to have his sentence shortened Jim pleaded guilty, and got
off with eighteen months’ imprisonment.
“When your term is up, Jim, go for a soldier,” I whispered to him as
he was led down stairs.
“Maybe I will—it depends,” he grimly answered with set teeth, and so
he disappeared for a year and a half’s moody reflection.
When the time came for his release he was fearfully excited for a
little over the fact that his beloved knife could not be found among
his treasures.
“My knife! my knife! I must have my knife!” he feverishly exclaimed,
and he absolutely refused to stir out of the prison till he got it.
When it was found and placed in his hands he appeared exuberantly
happy, and as impatient for liberty as he had before been reluctant
to leave.
At the gate, his mother, as usual, was there to receive him, but she
found him a good deal changed. He was moody and strange, except when
questioning her regarding Joe Knevitt. The little she knew of his old
pal was eagerly devoured, but beyond that he had little to say. At
home his first task was to get out his knife and grind its edge to a
razor-like keenness. His mother noticed the fact, and fancied that he
appeared specially careful with the point, but the only answer she
got was—
“Ah, it’s been lying a long time unused, mother. Eighteen months is a
long time—in prison;” and Jim’s teeth became set, and his two hands
shook as he tested the keenness of the point of the knife with his
thumb. His mother saw that she had touched a sore spot, and remained
silent. As soon as Jim’s task was over he set out to look for Joe. He
wanted him particularly, and was quite joyful when he learned that
Joe was still about the city, and not in prison. But search as he
could he did not find Joe, and at length learned that that cautious
customer had left for Glasgow on the very day of Jim’s release. No
matter, Jim thought distance a trifle, and followed as soon as he
could scrape enough money together. He took his knife with him. On
the second day he did see Joe for a moment or two—met him full in the
face in an entry off the Gallowgate; but the moment their eyes met,
and Jim’s hand went into his pocket, Knevitt ran like a hound, and
managed to distance Jim completely and escape. Next day Knevitt left
for Perth, after saying that he was off to Edinburgh; but Jim met a
man who had seen Joe take a ticket for Perth, and he followed. At
Perth he traced Knevitt without difficulty to a house known to them
both. But the hunted man had seen him approach, and by slipping on a
woman’s skirt and shawl and bonnet boldly passed him on the stair,
and escaped. Jim fathomed the trick a few minutes later, and cursed
his own stupidity in allowing the unnaturally tall female figure to
pass him; but by that time Knevitt was on his way to Dundee. The next
train took Jim there also. After a day’s hunting he met his man in
Couttie’s Wynd.
“By G—d! your hour has come!” he cried, darting his hand into his
breast pocket; but again Knevitt put on that fearful speed and ran
for life. Not far from the place is a ferry across to Fife. The pier
at which the boat starts is guarded by a gate which is closed when
the boat is about to move. Knevitt managed to get within that gate
just as it was being closed, and scrambled into the boat nearly dead
with terror, while Jim was thundering and shouting in vain outside
the gate in hope of admission. Knevitt had thus a whole hour’s start,
and, besides, had more money in his pocket. Jim, when he reached the
other side, was uncertain whether the hunted man had decided to walk
or ride; and his own funds being low, he resolved to walk. He had no
doubt as to the next goal.
“Edinburgh! he’ll be sure to land in Edinburgh!” he muttered to
himself, and thus he confidently tramped through Fife, reserving the
little money he had to pay the ferry at Burntisland. It was the dead
of winter, and bitterly cold, and when Jim arrived at his mother’s
house he was nearly dead beat. He had got over with a goods boat,
and reached home early in the morning. He lay down and slept all
day—a fevered, unrestful sleep, full of dreams and mutterings, and
suppressed threats and deadly words, which filled his mother with
terror. At night he awoke, and moodily consumed the meal placed
before him, and then limped to the door.
“Where are you for now?” asked his mother with a palpitating heart.
“Just going out to look about me,” was the answer, and then he
was gone. His mother thought she would look about her too, and
threw a shawl over her head and followed. During the two hours’
wandering which followed, she never lost sight of him. At last she
discovered that he was following a man—Joe Knevitt—who appeared quite
unconscious of the fact. Knevitt made for a tumble-down rookery in
a close a little below the Bridges. It was his home, and had the
advantage of being accessible from two sides—by the two flights of
wooden steps on one side, and by a back window on a level with a
higher close beyond. The garret on the top flat was all Joe’s, and he
clearly indicated to his foe that no one else was within by unlocking
the door as he went in. Jim had his shoes off in a twinkling, and
then crept up the first flight of steps and patiently waited in the
dark, with his knife ready unclasped in his hand. The poor mother
understood it all now, and, having before heard the place described,
she slipped round to the next close, clambered upon an outhouse,
and astonished Knevitt by tapping lightly at the window and madly
motioning him to come out and fly for his life. Knevitt needed no
explanation; her face was enough, and he was out at the window and
gone before she had well got over her excitement and terror. She
waited there for a full quarter of an hour to give him time to
escape; and then resolved to go in, open the door, and go down and
tell Jim that his plot was discovered and his intended victim far
beyond his reach. The door was opened, and Jim, watching below with
the knife in his hand, dimly saw a female figure descend where only a
man had entered.
“That trick won’t deceive me!” he cried, as he dashed up the steps
and drew back his right arm. “You’ve tried it once too often, Joe!”
One plunge of the sharp steel with all the strength of his powerful
arm, one low groan as the poor victim sank back on the steps, and
it was done, and Jim flying for life and liberty. His mother was
not dead when she was found, but it was quite evident that she was
mortally wounded. When her state was known, and preparations made
to take her deposition, she persisted that she had been stabbed by
Joe Knevitt. The knife found by her side was Jim Hutson’s, but his
mother, innocently or knowingly—I cannot tell which—said—
“Jim was aye a gude laddie, and though he was led away he wadna lift
his hand against his mother. Joe Knevitt did it, the ungrateful
scoondrel, after me daeing him a gude turn. _But dinna tell Jim_ or
he’ll kill him, and twa deaths winna mak’ ae life.”
We easily picked up Knevitt, but he denied the whole with such
manifest horror, and gave such explanations, that we set out to hunt
for Jim, and I was the one destined to unearth him; and also, I
regret to say, to inform him of the fearful crime he had committed.
That scene I can never describe. He dropped on his knees, rolled and
writhed on the floor, tearing his hair in a frenzy of agony, moaning
out but the two words—“My mother! My mother! My mother!” Of course he
confessed the whole crime in every detail; but his mother was never
told of the hand that gave her the death-blow. She lingered for some
months, and, the doctors said, did not actually die of the wound, but
of some trouble of the heart, brought on by the excitement and pain.
Jim was tried and convicted of manslaughter only, and was sentenced
to two years’ imprisonment. The sentence may seem light, but _that_
was not his punishment. He carried that within him. Joe Knevitt’s
bones now lie in the prison yard, but Jim’s dust is in a foreign
land, where he died on a battlefield in a way that made men call him
a hero. They did not know the secret of his daring.