The first time my attention was directed to Will Smeaton, was by
a telegram from a Border town which described his appearance, and
stated—a little late, however—that he had escaped in the direction of
Edinburgh. The message called for Smeaton’s arrest on suspicion of
a very deliberate attempt at murder, the victim being a sweetheart,
named Jessie Aimers. The full particulars followed the telegram,
and they seemed to leave little doubt of Smeaton’s guilt. Jessie
Aimers was a girl of superior education, a teacher in the town,
and greatly beloved by all. She and Smeaton had been brought up at
the same school, but with very different results—for he became a
kind of coarse dare-devil, a brass-finisher by trade, with a strong
inclination for salmon poaching; while Jessie grew up refined,
modest, and gentle. What possible bond of love could exist between
two such natures? is the question which naturally rises to one’s
lips; yet, with that tantalising contrariety which humanity seems to
revel in, the answer was only, that such love did exist, and in no
common degree of strength. The question was asked and echoed by all
the townsfolk, and debated and wondered over, but the only decision
was that Jessie Aimers was foolish to lavish her love on such a
worthless object, and very much to be pitied on that account. Simple,
short-sighted townsfolk! Jessie’s love was her life, her breath, the
very pulse of her heart. To give up that would have been simply to
lie down in the grave.
The circumstances under which the attempt at murder was said to have
been made were these:—Jessie Aimers had left her home about dusk on a
fine October evening to meet her lover, who was positively forbidden
her father’s house. They had met at some appointed spot, and were
seen about an hour later wandering slowly up by the river side.
Smeaton appeared to be in a bad temper, for he was talking loudly and
hotly. Jessie was answering gently and pleadingly. It was then quite
dark, but they were readily recognised by their voices. Further up
the river, and but a short time after, a great scream was heard, and
very soon Smeaton was seen returning along the path alone, in great
haste, and so intent on his own thoughts that he passed an intimate
acquaintance close enough to brush his sleeve, silent as a ghost.
Smeaton had gone straight home, but stayed there only long enough to
get some money and his watch, and then made his way to the railway
station and took a ticket for Edinburgh.
It was the manner in which this ticket was procured which first
excited suspicion. Smeaton did not go to the ticket window himself,
but skulked at the other end of the station, while he sent a boy
whom he had hailed for the purpose to get the ticket. The boy was
known, and the ticket clerk—astonished at him taking such a long
journey—refused to give the ticket till he admitted that he was
acting not for himself but for Will Smeaton. The boy probably made
no mention of the circumstance to Smeaton, for when the ticket clerk
went over the train helping to examine the tickets, and came upon
Smeaton in an obscure corner, he said to him laughingly—“Were ye
feared to come for the ticket yoursel’?” whereat the passenger looked
horribly scared and taken aback, so much so that he was unable to
reply before the ticket clerk was gone.
While this had been taking place, some young fellows were making
a queer catch on the river. They were salmon poachers, and were
hurriedly making a cast of a net at a shady part of the stream after
seeing the watchers safely out of sight, when suddenly one of them
cried out—
“Pull in! pull in! we’ve gotten as bonnie a beast as ever was ta’en
oot the water. I saw the white glisk o’ her as she tried to skirt
roond ootside the net, but we’ve gotten her! The sly witch is hidin’
at the bottom, but ye’ll see her in a meenit!”
Very much more quickly and eagerly than paid salmon labourers, the
others rushed the ends of the close-meshed net ashore, agreeing the
while that if it was but a single fish, it was a sixty or seventy
pounder at least, and in a moment or two had landed the bonnie white
fish—sweet Jessie Aimers, with her light dress clinging close to
her slight figure, her eyes closed as in death, and her white face
gleaming up at them like a shining moon out of the gloom.
“Gude save us, it’s a wuman! drooned! deid!” the scared poachers
cried in a breath, and by a common impulse they were near dropping
her and the net, and taking at once to their heels.
But one more sharp-sighted than the rest, bending down, noticed first
that there was a wound on the white brow, which was bleeding, and
next, that the features were familiar to him.
“Dog on it, lads, if it’s no bonnie Jessie Aimers!”
Exclamations of incredulity and horror ran round the group, and it
was only on one striking a match and holding the light close to the
cold face that they were convinced of the truth.
They stood there, silent and sorrowful, and with watchers and their
own dangers far from their thoughts, and then one threw out a wonder
as to how Jessie had got into the water.
“Fell in, maybe?” suggested one.
“Or jumped in, mair likely,” said another. “The puir thing has been
fretting her life away for Wull Smeaton. I aye thoucht it wad come to
this. She was far owre gude for him.”
“Maybe he helped her in,” darkly suggested a third. “I’ve seen them
often walking here thegither, and he’s a perfect brute when he’s in a
passion. He wad ding her in as sune as look at her.”
This last suggestion found most acceptance. These men knew Smeaton
thoroughly—his fiery temper, brutal strength, and impulsive
ferocity—and had little doubt but his hand had sent the poor girl to
her watery grave. Their only difficulty was how to act in the dilemma.
One thought that it would be safest, in order to avoid awkward
questioning by those in authority, to quietly slip the body into
the water again, stow away their net in its usual hiding-place, and
drop work for the night; but this proposal was not well received,
for Jessie was a general favourite, and was admired from a distance
by the roughest in the place. While they stood thus in doubt, one of
them suddenly exclaimed—
“Deid folk dinna bleed! She’s maybe living yet—let’s gie the puir
thing a chance—row her on the grass—lift up her airms—dae onything
that’s like to bring her roond.”
The result of this electrifying speech was that the whole gang lent
a hand in the rough and ready means of restoration, and, with such
good effect, that very shortly the supposed drowned girl gave signs
of life, though not of consciousness. Thus encouraged, the men made a
litter of their coats, and ran with her to the nearest cottage, where
she was put to bed, and tended and nursed as carefully as if she had
been in her own home.
Jessie’s parents were sent for and informed as gently as possible
of the accident, and their first exclamation on reaching their
daughter’s side was—“Oh, the villain! this is Smeaton’s wark!”
Jessie was able to recognise her father, and smile faintly when he
took her hand in his own, but she was too weak to give any account of
the accident or crime till next morning. By that time the flight of
Smeaton had been discovered, and telegrams despatched ordering his
arrest and detention; and when Jessie woke she found not only the
lieutenant of police, but a magistrate at her bedside, ready to hear
her statement and act upon her charge. Then they all were surprised
to find that Jessie had no charge to make. She would not, by as much
as a look, admit that Smeaton had thrown her into the water, or even
struck her so as to cause her to fall in or receive the wound on her
temple. How had the accident happened then?
“I must have fallen in,” said Jessie, after a long pause, and with
tears in her eyes.
“Yes, you must have fallen in,” impatiently interposed her father,
who positively hated her lover, “or you could never have been picked
out, but was the falling in purely accidental? Surely, Jessie, I have
trained you well enough in truthfulness to be able to rely on your
answer in a matter of life and death?”
“Yes, father, dear,” meekly answered Jessie, with fresh tears. “I
will always be truthful. But I cannot answer every question. I would
rather die and be at rest.”
“If this wretch attempted to drown you—to take your life—do you think
you are doing right to screen him from the just punishment of his
crime?” sternly observed her father.
“Will would never attempt such a thing,” warmly answered the girl.
“He has faults—though not so many as people imagine—but that he would
never do. It is not in his nature.”
“The police are after him now, and likely to get him, and when he is
tried you will be forced to speak the truth,” said her father; “you
will be the principal witness, and if you do not speak the whole
truth, you will be sent to prison yourself.”
“I will never say anything against him though they cut me in pieces,”
said Jessie, with a deep sigh. “Why did they take me out of the
river? It would have been better to let me lie than torture me with
questions.”
As Jessie’s condition was still precarious, it was decided to let
the matter rest for a little, and meanwhile make every effort to
capture Smeaton, trusting to Jessie becoming less reticent, or other
evidence turning up sufficient to secure his conviction. On the same
forenoon that Jessie was thus questioned, I was going along a street
near Nicolson Street, with my thoughts about as far from this case
as the moon is from the sun. As yet I had only the brief telegram to
guide me, and that contained but a meagre description of the man. He
was said to be a native of Berwick, of medium height, and to have
curly hair of a sandy hue, and a florid complexion, and to be rather
muscular and firmly built. These points might suit a dozen out of
every hundred one might meet in passing along the street, and the
description interested me so little that the actual features had,
at the moment, all but left my memory. What invisible finger is it
that guides many of our sudden impulses? When I entered that street
I had no intention whatever of visiting a pawnbroker’s, but when I
came to one of their prominent signs I turned into the stair and
ascended it, as gravely as if I had gone south for no other purpose
than to visit that particular establishment. I had been there the day
before looking for some trinkets which were reported stolen, and as
I entered, the thought struck me that I might ask for them again as
an excuse for my reappearance. I was in no hurry, however, and as I
could hear that there were some customers in before me, I simply took
my stand inside one of the little boxes, and nodded to the proprietor
to intimate that I should wait my turn. For the benefit of those
lucky mortals who have never been forced to enter such a place, I may
explain that these boxes run along in front of the counter, and are
chiefly useful for screening one customer from another. Once shut in,
you are safe from every eye but that sharp million-power magnifier
owned by the proprietor or his assistant.
As soon as I was shut in I noticed that the box next to me was
occupied by a male customer, who was busy extolling the value
and powers of a silver lever which he was trying to pledge. The
pawnbroker was quite willing to take the watch, but, as is usual
in such cases, the point on which they disagreed was the sum to be
advanced on the pledge. The argument was not particularly interesting
to me, and I gradually left it behind in my thoughts while I revelled
in the queer brogue of the stranger. It was a rich and musical twang
to my ears; and when the man came to any word with the letter R in
it—such as “tr-r-r-ain”—he rolled that R out into about a thousand,
with a rich swell which made one imagine he enjoyed it. I was
puzzled for a moment or two to decide on the exact locality of the
dialect—though I have often boasted that I can tell the dialects of
Scotland and a good part of England to within thirty miles of the
exact spot on hearing them spoken.
“The man is from Newcastle,” I rather hastily decided; then came a
slight mental demur at the decision. There were slight points of
difference and many strong points of resemblance. I listened for a
little longer, and then smiled out at my own slowness and stupidity.
“I might have known that tongue at the first sentence,” was my mental
exclamation. “It’s the Berwick burr.”
While this analysis was going on in my mind, the haggling over the
watch was concluded by the stranger accepting a loan of thirty
shillings on the pledge, and a ticket was rapidly filled up to that
effect, till it came to the important question—
“What name?”
There was a pause before the answer came, and when it was spoken
there was much in the careless tone which implied that too much
reliance was not to be placed on the truthfulness of the reply.
“Oh, say John Smith.”
“I can’t take it at all unless you give me your real name,” said the
pawnbroker, sharply. I have no doubt my presence put a little _edge_
on him. “How am I to know,” he virtuously added, “that the watch is
not stolen?”
“Stolen?” echoed the stranger, warmly. “Man, there’s the name of the
man I bought it frae;” and he turned out a watch-paper inserted under
the back. I could not see the name, but I did make out the words
“Berwick-on-Tweed.” “I’m no a thief—I’m a brassfounder to trade,”
continued the man, with energy, “and I expect to lift it again in a
week or two.”
“A brassfounder?” I thought, with a start. “I wonder if his name is
Smeaton?”
While I was wondering the bargain was concluded, and the money paid
over, and then the man left. I left my box at the same moment, and we
moved out together.
“It’s a nice morning,” he said, and I returned the greeting.
When we reached the street he turned northwards, and I decided that
that was my way too.
“I heard you say you are a brassfounder,” I remarked. “You’ll be
looking for a job?”
No, he didn’t think he was—he meant to lie quiet for a little.
“Oh, indeed?—got into trouble, I suppose,” I returned, with interest.
“Well, man,” I added, in a confidential whisper, “I know a place
where your dearest friends couldn’t get at you. You’d be safer there
than anywhere. Care to go?”
He wasn’t sure. He didn’t mind going, but he did not promise to stay
there. He was glad of company, however, and offered to treat me to
some drink. I was in a hurry, and begged to be excused.
“You belong to Berwick?” I said, decidedly.
He looked startled and troubled.
“Who said that? How do you know?” he stammered.
“I know the Berwick burr, and you’ve got it strong,” I quietly
answered.
“I haven’t been in Berwick for mony a year,” he said firmly.
“I thought that—that’s what puzzled me for a while—you’ve got a touch
of Coldstream or Kelso on your tongue,” I coolly remarked.
He stared at me in evident consternation, and getting a trifle pale,
but made no reply. I had been studying his appearance, and from that
moment felt almost certain of my man.
I conducted him by North College Street, down College Wynd, chatting
familiarly all the way, but never extracting from him his real name.
I took him that way to convey to him the idea that he was going to
some low “howf,” in which a man in trouble might burrow safely, and
was pleased to note that, as the route became more disreputable,
his spirits rose. He evidently did not know the city, and that
circumstance aided me. I turned up the Fishmarket Close, and into the
side entrance to the Central.
“What kind o’ a place is this?” he asked, staggered at the width and
spaciousness of the stair.
“It’s the place I told you of,” I carelessly answered, taking care
to make him move up the stairs in front of me. I saw his step become
more faltering and unsteady, and when we reached the door of the
“reception room,” I knew by his ghastly pallor that the truth had
flashed upon him.
“Straight in there, Smeaton,” I said, as his eye fell on me. “This is
an unexpected pleasure to both of us.”
He looked at me like a trapped tiger, and I fully expected him to
make a dash and dive for liberty.
“What’s your name?” he almost groaned.
“M^cGovan.”
“The devil!” he ungratefully exclaimed; and then I led him in, and
accommodated him with a seat. He became fearfully agitated, and at
length blurted out—
“If anything has happened to the girl, I’m not to blame for it.”
He did not once seem to think of denying his identity, and yet till
that moment I was anything but certain that I had the right man. He
seemed a desperate, callous, and daring fellow, and but for the canny
way in which he had been led to the place, would, I feel sure, have
given us a world of trouble to capture. But once fairly limed, he
became but a quaking coward. I did not understand his terror till I
learned that he did not know that Jessie Aimers had been rescued, and
her life saved. There was a visionary gallows before the villain at
the moment seen only by himself. We were smiling all round, but there
wasn’t a ghost of a smile left in him. After he had emitted a very
brief declaration, he was locked up; and next day a man came through
and took him back to the town he had left so suddenly. Jessie Aimers
still persisted in her silence, and the only charge which could
justify Smeaton’s detention was one of salmon poaching. The evidence
took some time to collect, and when the trial came on, Jessie Aimers
was just able to drag herself out of bed and be present. Smeaton was
found guilty, and fined heavily, with an alternative of imprisonment,
which every one said would be his reward. But to the astonishment of
all, and the disgust of Jessie’s father, the fine was paid. No one
but Smeaton then knew that the money had been furnished by Jessie
Aimers; and yet when the brute was set at liberty, and she waited at
the Court entrance to see him and speak with him as he passed out,
he was seen by many to push the loving girl violently from him with
some imprecation, and walk off with a servant girl of evil reputation
named Dinah King. Jessie pressed back the rising tears, and was able
to draw on a faint smile before she was joined by her father. Her
father had almost to carry her home, and every one looking on that
pale face and drooping form declared that Jessie was not long for
this world.
Some months after the trial, the house in which Dinah King served was
broken into and robbed. Although the plunder was mostly of a kind
not easily hidden or carried away, no trace of it was got, and the
thieves were never heard of. After a decent interval Dinah discovered
that the work of that house was too heavy for her, and gave notice
to leave. When she did go she left the town, and Smeaton disappeared
with her. Had she gone alone, perhaps no suspicion would have been
roused, but his reputation was already tainted, and the result was
another intimation to us to look after the pair, as it was rumoured
that they had gone to Edinburgh. The very day on which this message
arrived a young lady appeared at the Office asking for me, and giving
her name as Miss Aimers. As she appeared weak and faint, she was
allowed to wait my arrival. When I saw her face my first thought
was—“How young and how sweet to have death written on her face!” Yes,
death was written there—in the pale, sunken cheeks and waxy lips; in
the deep lustrous eyes, and in the gasping and panting for breath
which necessitated every sentence she uttered being broken in two. A
word or two introduced her, and then I distinctly recalled the former
case with Smeaton, and a thrill of pity ran through me as I looked on
that wistful face and eager pair of eyes, and listened to her story.
“Every one is prejudiced against him but me,” she said with strange
calmness. “Look at me. I am dying. I know it, and yet I am calm and
fearless. I could even be happy were it not for him, and the thought
of him being lost to me through all eternity. I could not exist in
heaven sundered from him. It would not be heaven to me. Oh, sir! you
have seen much misery and much wickedness, but you know that a woman
is not always blind even when she loves with all her soul. He is not
so bad; but he is easily influenced and led away. If he is taken and
put in prison, through that fearful woman, will you remember that?
And if I should not be allowed to see him, or if I am taken away
before then, will you give him a message from me?”