“You can take the train;” and Bob’s spirits rose somewhat, but
scarcely to their normal level.
At the end of the lane he found his two companions patiently waiting.
They were overjoyed to see the sixpence, but the sight of the parcel
was a terrible damper. That load was all that lay between them and a
day of pure, unalloyed joy. They could have kicked the parcel; and
one seriously suggested to Bob that they should quietly drop it into
the river or the sea, and go their way undisturbed. Bob reluctantly
declined the proposal, but was easily persuaded to go to Portobello
first instead of to Edinburgh, and have his fill of fun before taking
the parcel to that city.
“It’s a present,” the boys reasoned, “and they’re not to know who
sends it or where it comes from, so it doesn’t matter whether they
get it soon or late, or whether they get it all, for that matter.”
Reader, did you ever, when a boy, tramp to Portobello and spend
half a day there on a light—a very light—breakfast? I have, and can
testify that the edge which that fine seaside resort puts on a boy’s
appetite would make chuckie stones or hedge leaves seem princely
fare. The wonder is—at least my wonder used to be, when we went in
droves—that some small boy, juicy and tender, in the gang, did not
mysteriously disappear on the return journey. The three travellers
enjoyed themselves famously on the sands. The sixpence of train
money vanished like magic. They bathed seven times, like the ancient
pilgrims of Jordan. They saw the races, and Punch and Judy, and
every kind of cheap delights, dragging that parcel about with them,
and each taking turns at carrying it through the crowd. At length Bob
and another decided to have another bathe, and left their clothes and
the parcel in charge of the third on the hot sandy beach. When they
returned, the wolfish guardian had the paper covers off the cake,
and was volubly explaining how a bit of the sugar coating must have
been broken off during their travels. He had eaten the bit, as it was
of no further use, and “Edinburgh” had disappeared. The two bathers
looked on with wonderful calmness. Their teeth were chattering, and
they were longing for a “hungry bite.” The remaining words of the
inscription were suggestive—“A Present from ——.” A mysterious unseen
donor was offering them a present.
“The folk wouldn’t like to get a broken cake like that,” suggested
one of the boys to Bob. “If we were to eat it, they’d never miss it.”
Hunger quickens the reasoning faculties. Bob at once saw the point,
and without waiting to dress he broke up the cake, and they all
filled their stomachs. The cake just fitted the three nicely; and
then they tore up the covers, annexed the sixpence found within, and
had a glorious somersault on the sands to celebrate their victory.
But “pleasures are like poppies spread,” and poppies, as everybody
knows, contain a deal of poison. These three conquerors were in turn
to be conquered—the fate of all. They began to feel queer, as if the
wild war-dance had not agreed with them. They got worse, and another
bathe was proposed; but their clothes were scarcely off, and their
toes in the sea, when they fell down writhing and howling. It was a
clear case of cramp. A great crowd gathered about them; rescue-men
distinguished themselves in hauling the three boys out of a full inch
of water; and they were borne howling to the baths. They roared while
they had breath, and then lay limp and insensible. A doctor summoned
in haste placed his hand on one of the stomachs—he must have been a
family man—a pump was sent for, but before it arrived they had each
begun to relieve themselves. Still they were very ill, and it was
quite clear to the doctor that they had been poisoned. As they said
nothing of the sugared cake they had devoured, but admitted that they
had eaten a pennyworth of gingerbread among them, the poor seller of
the gingerbread was pounced upon by the police, and lugged off to
prison as a wholesale poisoner. The three hapless victims being quite
unfit for removal, a telegram was sent to their parents, stating
that they had been poisoned, but were expected to recover.
The effect of this message upon the parents of the two companions was
alarming, but Coglin it only enraged. At first he stood horrified
like the rest, but then, guessing something like the truth, he burst
into a fit of passion, and said that it was all Burfoot’s doing. His
mode of reasoning was this—Burfoot had been the cause of him having
to prepare the poisoned cake; through him preparing that cake his own
boy had been poisoned; therefore Burfoot, in addition to his past
crimes, was guilty of a deliberate attempt to murder the baker’s son.
What reprisal, what punishment, could be too great for such a wretch?
Coglin resolved to be his own avenger as before, and went to
Portobello to see his son. He affected to believe Bob’s story of
being poisoned by the pennyworth of gingerbread, and reminded him
of how often he had warned him against eating anything that was
not baked at home. Bob was delighted to get off so easily, and
humbly promised to remember the advice, which he did by never again
putting a cake baked by his father within his lips. When the boys
were brought home, and the unhappy seller of the gingerbread had
been liberated, with his raven locks turned grey with terror of the
scaffold, Coglin was at liberty to punish the criminal. This time
he resolved to make his vengeance sweeping in its character, and to
confide the execution of it to no one but himself. To decide on the
special punishment required a deal of thinking, but all Coglin’s
thinking pointed to one qualification—the retaliation must include
personal loss to Burfoot. Coglin had already lost considerably by
Burfoot’s crime; it was but just that Burfoot should suffer in the
same manner. While Coglin was at a loss to decide the matter, the
newspapers or public press kindly came to his aid. In these he saw
described a case of fire-raising by wandering tinkers, who had made
up a pellet of chemicals, procurable at any drysalter’s, which, on
being thrown down among straw or wood, spontaneously ignited, and
burned so fiercely that the whole place was speedily in a blaze.
Coglin for nights on end devoted himself to amateur chemistry, and
with such ardour that he at length produced a pellet, quite good
enough to set the whole of Burfoot’s donkey-shed and pig-styes in
flames. The pellet, when finished, resembled a lump of badly-dried
clay; and to ensure its safety, Coglin, when it was finished, placed
it in one of his metal confection pans, and locking it in his
bakehouse, went to survey his foe’s premises and decide upon the best
spot for throwing the pellet. He succeeded to perfection. There was
easy access to the place, a convenient window to the shed, plenty
of straw inside, and the whole of the sheds were of wood as dry
as tinder, and promising a grand blaze. It gave Coglin additional
satisfaction to know that Burfoot’s place was not insured. While
the baker was thus settling matters at the other end of the town, a
curious incident was taking place on his own premises. His shop and
house were in the front street, and the bakehouse in a lane at the
back. While Coglin was gone, his wife attended to the shop, and while
doing so was asked by a customer for a little barm. To get that she
had to take down the key of the bakehouse from its accustomed nail,
and go down to the place herself, while the customer waited in the
shop. She was not long gone, but woman’s curiosity in that short time
had induced her to peep into the closed pot. Finding only a dirty
piece of clay inside she examined it closely, and then tossed it into
a corner among some chopped wood there stacked, and then hurried off
to her customer with the barm. They conversed earnestly for a time,
and then parted mutually pleased. When the barm-buyer had gone, a boy
ran into the shop with the startling message—
“Your bakehoose is bleezing!”
It was blazing, and had been for some time, as the infuriated tailor
above could testify. He had barely time to secure his kirkgoing suit
and his spectacles when the whole tenement was in a blaze. He swore
at the bakehouse and its owner as the ruin of him and his prospects.
His furniture and effects were all lost, and he did not hesitate to
hint that the whole had been done intentionally.
He was in the midst of these recriminations when Coglin appeared, and
stood speechless before the blazing house.
“You did it on purpose, because you kent I wasna insured, and because
you thought I went into your bakehouse and spoilt your batch,” cried
the distracted tailor, pouncing on the astonished baker and trying to
throttle him black in the face; “but I’ll hae the law to you, or I’ll
tak’ your life wi’ my ain hands.”
They fought madly for some moments, and were then, considerably
damaged, torn asunder by the bystanders. The tailor raved like a
madman, and, astonishing to all, the baker listened to his frenzied
accusations with the greatest meekness and calmness.
The truth is that the tailor, in his passion, had allowed several
words and expressions to escape him which for the first time made
Coglin doubt his own acumen in accusing Burfoot of the first outrage,
and ask himself at the same time if it was not possible that the real
perpetrator was Thomas Elder, tailor. The man had a strong hatred to
him, and they had quarrelled quite as bitterly as he and Burfoot.
The words and expressions would admit of no other explanation than
Elder’s guilt, and now several circumstances recurred to Coglin’s
memory to confirm the idea. The tailor had bought herrings on that
day, and witnessed the quarrel, and might easily have conceived the
plan of entering the bakehouse and smearing the window and board with
herring scales to convey the idea that the herring hawker was the
criminal.
While Coglin was slowly evolving these ideas, a hand was placed
on his arm, and, looking round, he found Burfoot at his side with
genuine concern and consternation on his face.
“I’m real sorry for this,” he said, wringing Coglin’s hand, “and if
the loan of thirty or forty pounds will help you in your strait, you
can depend upon me.”
“Good God! no!” cried Coglin, chokingly.
“But I say, yes. I can surely help a friend in distress,” persisted
Burfoot, warmly.
“A friend?” said Coglin, helplessly. “Yes.”
“And I’m almost glad to have the chance, for that tailor has lost
everything,” added Burfoot, in a whisper. “Nobody can be sorry for
him, for, between ourselves, I believe he was the man who entered
your bakehouse and spoiled your flour.”
“What?”
“Yes; I was told by one who knows, but wanted to keep it quiet, that
the tailor was seen coming out of your bakehouse window at about one
o’clock in the morning.”
“And you never told me!” cried Coglin, reproachfully.
“I can’t tell you even yet; I only say I think it,” said Burfoot,
cautiously.
Coglin was conquered at last, and he and Burfoot left the spot
arm-in-arm and fast friends for life. Some of these facts came out
long after, when I had the tailor in my hands on another charge, and
some were given me by Coglin himself. He is in business still, and
prospering in a town on the opposite side of the Forth, and Burfoot
often goes through to spend a few days there with his firm friend,
golfing on a nice links near the place. As he knows all about the
baker’s misconceptions and plans for his punishment, and the names
are all changed here, I have decided that the giving of the details
can do no harm now, and may at the same time teach those seeking
revenge that it is possible for punishment intended for another to
drop very neatly on to their own shoulders.