A toll-keeper on the main road some miles south of Edinburgh was
standing at his open door watching the gambols of his two children,
when a weary traveller approached and arrested his gaze. There
was something uncommon about the dusty tramp when his appearance
could rouse interest in an old toll-keeper, accustomed to look
with indifference on every kind of wanderer that God’s earth can
produce. This one was an old man, tall and gaunt and white-haired.
So far there was a bond of interest between them, but with age the
comparison ceased, for the toll-keeper was stout and well-clad, and
had a comfortable expression beaming from every part of his face;
while the stranger was haggard, worn, and drooping, like one who
had got all that earth was likely to give, and did not care how
soon the giving ceased. Above the toll-keeper’s happy face was a
ticket intimating that he was licensed to sell tobacco; while in
one window a few bottles of confections and biscuits, and the words
“Refreshments and Lemonade” on a show card, summed up his efforts at
trading. The dusty tramp halted in front of the toll-keeper, giving
the stout man a full view of his poor clothing and fragile boots,
from which his toes were peeping, and his sharp eyes eagerly devoured
the intimation above the doorway.
“Good evening, sir,” he said quietly, as he fumbled among his clothes
for a pocket, and at length produced a penny.
The toll-keeper in general was gruff enough with tramps, even when
they seemed disposed to buy his wares, but there was a ring in the
tones of this one which struck a chord of pity in his breast, and
he returned the greeting kindly. In front of the window showing
the biscuits and sweets was a wooden bench. The haggard one limped
towards this bench, saying in the same quiet tones—
“Might I rest for a bit on this bench?”
There was nothing arrogant or bold in this request, but rather a ring
of indifference or despair. It was as if he had said—“It doesn’t
matter whether you say yes or no, or whether I sit down or move on,
or drop dead by the way. The end is not far off either way.”
“Oh, ay, sit as lang as ye like; ye’re welcome,” said the
toll-keeper, heartily. “You look like you had come a far way?”
“I have, sir—a matter of four hundred miles,” said the white-haired
tramp, knitting his brows; then recovering himself, he said in his
former quiet tones, “I suppose you couldn’t let me have a penn’orth
of tobacco? I’ve on’y a penny left.”
“Hout, ay;” and the toll-keeper brought a liberal length of roll
tobacco, which the weary traveller grasped eagerly and paid for
promptly with his penny. He bit off a piece and chewed it fiercely,
his eye resting steadily the while on the face of one of the
toll-keeper’s children, a rosy-cheeked girl of seven or eight, who
was gazing on the gaunt face and figure in a species of awe.
“It’s good for killing hunger,” he observed, with his eye still
meditatively fixed upon the child; “not that I’ve felt much of it,”
he hastily added, as if in fear that the toll-keeper would think
that he meant to beg; “I haven’t had time to think of that. That’s a
pretty child,” he abruptly added, alluding to the girl.
“Yes, but she’s not looking so well as she did,” answered the
toll-keeper, with a father’s pleased look at the compliment. “We
nearly lost her with fever a while ago.”
“Imphm!” grimly returned the white-haired tramp. “Mebbe some day
you’ll wish she had been taken. She’ll grow up to a fine lass, and
then some one will envy you of your bonny flower and crush it up in
his fingers, never thinking or caring to think that your heart’s
inside of it. You’ll go mad, then, and think how happy you could have
been smoothing the turf on her grave when she was a little child.”
“God forbid!” fervently exclaimed the toll-keeper, catching the child
up in his arms, as if to shield her there.
“God? What’s God got to do with it, I’d like to know?” cried the
white-haired tramp, with his hard tones rising to a despairing snarl.
“Is there any God? I never see him, though there’s plenty of devil
about—that everybody can see with their eyes shut. Look you, sir!”
he added, clenching one bony hand and smiting the palm of the other
in fearful excitement, “I’ve done with God for ever! When my girl
was like that little one I used to go to church o’ Sundays, and feel
pious and good, and have my heart full of softness and gratitude.
I’ve felt as if I could have took the whole world into my arms to
bless it. But that’s all gone now, and the devil’s the one I speak
to. He’s been with me all the way, cheering and helping me over the
weary miles, and I won’t turn agen him now when I’m near the end of
it.”
The toll-keeper shrank back before the terrible words and sudden
hurricane of passion which convulsed the speaker; then he gathered
the two children in his arms, and said softly to them—
“Run round into the garden, bairns, and pull some bonnie flowers, and
make a fairy’s feast in a corner, with rose leaves for plates. I’ll
come round and see it when it’s done. Haste ye now!” and, with a kiss
and a smile, he dismissed them.
“Excuse me, sir; I forgot about the little uns,” said the tramp,
falling back into his former subdued tones, and evidently perfectly
understanding the toll-keeper’s haste to get the children out of
hearing. “I’ve seen the day when I’d ’a’ been horrified at such
words myself. It’s the way the world goes. We’ve good occasion to
look mercifully on them as is far down, ’cause we may get into their
state afore we die. I knew a man once—a Methody he was—who preached
a sermon on that man that was hanged for killing his sweetheart up
in London. It would have done you good to hear it—how he pitched
into that poor chap in the condemned cell. Well, that same Methody
quarrelled with a man about some furniture, and went home and got a
log of wood, and came back and struck the other over the head till he
died, and he was had up for murder, and convicted and hanged for it,
as sure as you stand there. I wondered, when I saw him brought out,
if he had been pitching into himself when he was in the condemned
cell;” and the white-haired tramp laughed a hard, sardonic, unmusical
laugh, without a vestige of merriment in the sound.
The toll-keeper fidgeted uneasily, and began to wish this man of such
changing moods gone.
“Are you going far?” he asked, wishing to change the subject.
“I’m going on—on—to be hanged,” said the stranger, absently; then,
recovering himself on noting the toll-keeper’s look of horror, he
said, abruptly, “What do you call this ’ere town?”
The toll-keeper named the place.
“That’s it!” cried the tramp, rousing up and speaking with a kind of
triumphant ferocity. “That’s the place—I’m not going far past that.
I’ve come to find a man out and pay a debt.”
To pay a debt!—a man who had just parted with his last penny! The
toll-keeper’s suspicions were confirmed—the old man’s brain was
affected; his wrongs, if he had any, had deprived him of reason. At
this stage there came an interruption to their conversation from a
field on the opposite side of the road. There was no gate or stile
at that part of the field, but over the wall there came clambering a
gamekeeper and a gentleman, who had evidently been hard at work with
the gun among the woods and coverts further back. The gamekeeper,
after a word or two from his companion, walked on with the heavy
bag of game, while the gentleman strolled forward familiarly to the
toll-keeper’s door, wiping the sweat from his brow, and looking
almost as tired as the tramp there seated. As he did so, the tramp
noted what a fine face the gentleman owned—not so very pretty or
finely proportioned, but full of sympathy and gentle courtesy, and
altogether likeable and attractive even to a man old, soured, and
broken in spirit.
“A warm day, John,” the new-comer said, with just one swift passing
glance at the tramp on the bench. “A glass of lemonade, as quick as
you can, for I’m dying of thirst.”
“Will you no come in an’ sit doon, sir?” returned the toll-keeper,
obsequiously.
“No, thank you—this will do nicely. Now, hurry!” and the gentleman
seated himself easily beside the tramp on the bench, where they
formed a queer contrast—the tramp old and done, the gentleman in the
full flush of youth and strength, and evidently with everything at
his command that could make man happy.
“A warm day this,” he added pleasantly to the white-haired tramp.
“You look tired and thirsty too. Will you have a drink with me? John,
another glass of lemonade and some biscuits,” he imperatively called
out, as the tramp refused the proffered gift, with an instinctive
touch at his fore-lock. The lemonade was brought and decanted, the
first glass being handed to the gentleman, who politely handed it
to the white-haired tramp, who, with another protest, not quite so
firm as the first, and the words, “Long life to you, sir!” placed the
grateful beverage to his lips and drank it off, the gentleman then
following his example. The biscuits had been brought out on a tray,
and the frank sportsman lifted one of these, and then crammed the
remainder bodily into the hands of the tramp.
“Eat away; I only want a bite. I shall be having dinner when I get
home,” he said, in a careless, yet kindly manner, which disarmed the
gift of anything calculated to offend the most sensitive. “You’re
English, I think?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the white-haired man, in so soft a tone that the
toll-keeper felt inclined to rub his eyes to see if it was really the
same man.
“London way, eh?” continued the gentleman, toying with the biscuit.
“Yes, sir—Rotherhithe,” said the tramp, eating as if he had not eaten
for some time.
“Ah, I’ve been often there myself—a fine place,” said the gentleman,
with kindling eyes; and then they talked pleasantly of London and its
attractions, the gentleman never once showing by word or look that he
considered the tramp his inferior. At length he rose to go, took up
his gun and paid the toll-keeper, and then, with a pleasant nod to
both toll-keeper and tramp, he walked off towards the town.
The tramp looked after him in silence, munching the while at one of
the biscuits.
“Who is that?” he said at length, with less gloom on his face and
bitterness in his tones.
“Oh, that’s young Gowlieden.”
“Gowlieden? Good heavens! what a name to go to bed with!” said the
tramp. “Well, anyway, he’s a good fellow; God bless him, and send
more of his kind into this hard world!”
“Gowlieden isn’t his real name,” said the toll-keeper with a smile.
“It’s the name of one of his father’s estates, and it’s our fashion
here in Scotland to give the big folks the name of their land. That’s
the heir, you know, and we call him young Gowlieden. His real name is
Stephen Barbour. They live at a place called Frearton Hall, on the
other side of the town.”
“What!”
The tramp had started to his feet, and given out the word with a
shout which almost drove the breath out of the toll-keeper’s body.
“Yes, Frearton Hall—what’s wrong with that?” stammered the
toll-keeper.
“And Stephen Barbour, you say, is his name?” cried the tramp, with
every feature of his face gradually overspreading with horror and
loathing.
“Yes, that is his name.”
“My God!” moaned the white-haired tramp, snatching the bite from his
own mouth and dashing it down on the road, and then trampling on it
with insensate fury; “my God! and I broke bread with him, and took
the drink from his hands, and thought him so kind and noble-looking!
And I said ‘God bless him,’ not knowing any better. Why did the words
not blister on my tongue?”
“You know him, then? You have met the young laird before?” said the
astonished toll-keeper.
“Never, never! But I know him, the scoundrel! I know him too well.”
“He’s no scoundrel,” cried the toll-keeper, warmly. “He’s as good and
true a man as any that breathes. Everybody likes him far or near, and
never yet did I hear any but yourself say a word against him.”
The tramp did not seem to hear the words. He sent the last of the
biscuits skimming as far as he could throw them, and, wringing his
hands, he dropped on his knees on the dusty road.
“Forgive me, Meg, forgive me!” he muttered in a frantic fashion, with
his thoughts evidently far away. “How could I know any better?”
Tears were flowing down his cheeks, and these stopped the harsh words
which were rising to the lips of the toll-keeper. The tramp tugged
out a ragged handkerchief to wipe away the tears, and in doing so
dragged out something hard and shiny, which dropped with a metallic
clank on the road. The toll-keeper looked round just in time to see
that the dropped article was a pistol, which the tramp was hurriedly
putting out of sight again. All his sympathy vanished at the sight of
the weapon.
“You had better be going,” he said coldly, “for if the police saw you
carrying that, they’d soon give you a place to sleep in.”
“I’m going,” said the tramp calmly, rising and moving off. “I haven’t
far to go now. Oh, if I had only known!”
Thus he limped away, still wiping his eyes with the ragged
handkerchief; and if the county constable had chanced to pass the
spot that night, the toll-keeper would certainly have warned him to
look after the mad old man, as he thought him. As it was, he got
leave to go on to the town, and further. On the north side of the
place, and but half a mile from the toll, Frearton Hall stood within
its own grounds. There was a lodge at the entrance, kept by the
gamekeeper already alluded to, but if the tramp entered there, he had
opened the gate and walked in unseen. The dinner at the hall was just
over when one of the servants brought a message, which she whispered
into the ear of the young laird.
“Wants to see me? Who is he? Did he give no name?” he was heard
hurriedly to say.
“No, sir; and he’s such an awful-like man—just like a tramp or a
beggar,” answered the girl.
“A tramp? Oh, I see! Is he old and white-haired?” said the gentleman,
remembering the scene at the toll-keeper’s house, and the queer
character he had assisted there. “Excuse me; I’ll be back in a
minute,” he said to the others in the room; and he ran out, expecting
to find the man in the hall.
“He wouldn’t come in; he said he’d wait outside,” said the girl,
noticing her young master’s look of disappointment. “P’r’aps he’s
away by this time.”
The young laird stepped briskly through the hall and looked out into
the dusk. The sun had just set, and there was still light enough to
see any one near the spot. At the head of the walk leading to the
house there was a clump of laurels and a drooping ash, and Stephen
Barbour fancied he saw a white-haired head look out from behind that,
and quickly cleared the space to find his suspicions correct. The
queer tramp stood before him, with his right hand hidden down among
the rags by his side.
“Oh, it’s you again?” said the gentleman frankly, at the same time
extending his hand to be shaken.
“You’re Stephen Barbour, eldest son of Russel Barbour, aren’t you?”
said the tramp, taking no notice of the proffered hand, and glaring
on the young man with a ferocity which startled the other.
“I am, sir—what then?”
“Then I’ve come to pay you back for what you did to Meg,” said the
old man, with suppressed fury. “Take that!” and instantly he raised
his right hand, and a pistol-shot rang out on the soft evening air.
Quickly as the hand was raised the victim had time to throw out his
own in a futile grasp at the old man’s arm; then, when the bullet
reached him, though desperately wounded, Barbour, with a loud cry,
threw himself upon his assailant, grasping him tightly in his arms
as if he would have squeezed the breath out of the man’s body. The
tramp had made no attempt to escape, and probably meant to make
none; but the grasp annoyed him, and he struggled violently for a
moment, and at length, as the senses of the wounded man were leaving
him, succeeded in throwing Barbour backwards. At the same moment
a coachman, turning a corner of the house with a pitchfork in his
hands, ran forward to learn the cause of the disturbance, and seeing
his young master in the act of being thrown down by a ragged tramp,
he ran at the old man full tilt with the prongs of the fork, one of
which passed clean through the tramp’s arm.
This assault seemed to rouse the old man to a pitch of insane fury,
which gave him an unnatural strength. He rushed at the coachman,
wrenched the pitchfork from his hands, smashed him furiously over
the head with the long pole, and then, throwing down the new weapon,
turned and vanished.
The spectacle which met the eyes of the alarmed household when
they rushed out was that of two men lying prostrate on the ground,
with the pitchfork and pistol near them, and the first impression
naturally was that the coachman in an insane moment had turned and
attacked his young master. In a minute or two the true state of
affairs was made known; the wounded man was borne into the house,
and messengers despatched in every direction in search of the
murderous assailant. From the first the medical man summoned gave
very little hope of Barbour’s recovery, and positively forbade him
being questioned in any way. But when the news of the crime had been
sent to Edinburgh, and I went out to get the facts of the case, the
toll-keeper had spoken to the county constable of all that took place
at the door, and, after a visit to that worthy, I thought I had the
true solution of the mystery, which was far from being the case.
During some of his visits to London the young heir had met the old
tramp’s daughter; the usual heart-rending result had followed, and
the visit of the father had been undertaken solely for revenge. That
was my view of the case, and in spite of the deadly determination
with which that vengeance had been wreaked, my sympathy lay more with
the poor father than his victim. To my surprise, however, both the
toll-keeper and the county police strongly dissented from my opinion.
Stephen Barbour, they strenuously declared, was quite incapable
of such villainy. His character was singularly pure, and his whole
life had been known to these men to be honourable and upright. From
the lowest to the highest, every one had a good word for Stephen
Barbour, and at the time of the shooting he was about to be married
to a gifted young lady, who for years had been sole mistress of his
affections. Without troubling to argue the point I set out to trace
the murderer. Edinburgh was not a great distance from the scene of
the attack, and the nearest large city, and my experience is that
a genuine red-handed murderer always seeks safety among the masses
of the biggest town within reach, unless he can at once leave the
country. This one was poor—his last penny had been expended—therefore
he could not go far quickly. I returned to Edinburgh, and the same
afternoon met a man at the Night Asylum who had given the old tramp
twopence, and a bit of white cotton to bind round his wounded arm. He
had come upon him at the roadside near the city trying to remove the
ragged coloured handkerchief with which he had bound up the arm, and
which he was afraid might poison the wound.
On getting this news I started for the South Side, and had got as far
as Minto Street, when, looking up one of the quiet streets leading
towards St Leonards, I saw a tramp seated on a gate step, and moved
up to have a look at him. So minutely had the man been described to
me, that I recognised him at a glance. He was seated on the step
holding his wounded arm, and staring straight before him in despair
and apathy, his face white as his hair, and his whole expression that
of a man longing for death to end his troubles.
I stopped before him, and when his dull eyes at length rose to meet
my own, I said to him sharply—
“You were out at Frearton Hall last night?”
A slight flush came into his bloodless face at the words, and he
faintly tried to rise.
“Yes, sir,” he answered. “You’re a pleeceman, though you don’t wear
the clothes?”
“Take care what you say—it’ll all be used against you,” I said, as I
gave him my hand to help him to his feet.
“Oh, I don’t mind that a bit,” he said in a woeful and weary way that
went straight to my heart. “Is he dead?—the man I fired at—is he
dead?”
“He was not when I left him, but they’re expecting that,” I curtly
answered. “Can you walk with me to the Central—it’s more than a
mile—or would you need a cab?”
“I’m willin’ to walk as far as my strength will carry me,” he said,
with child-like obedience, as he took my arm for support. “Only to
think that I’ve been an honest working man, striving to do what’s
right all my life, and yet to come to be hanged for murder after all!
And I’m not sorry, either. I’m glad I’ve killed him, for I expect my
Meg to die through him.”
I looked at him curiously, thinking that his mind was affected, but
the quick eyes took in the look at once, and he added—
“I’m not touched here;” and he put a finger-point to his forehead;
“don’t think that. I’m as right in the head as you are—only worn out
and done. I was strong enough till it was all over, and then I seemed
to have not the strength of a sparrow.”
I thought he was right, and at the end of the street hailed a cab
from the stance, and we drove to the Central, he looking out on the
crowded streets with great interest, and making another of his queer
remarks.
“I s’pose it’s the last time I’ll see so many people till I’m brought
out to be hanged,” he said, stolidly. “Well, it won’t be any worse
than what I’ve felt already here—here;” and he put his hand on his
breast and quickly added, “Be you a family man, now?”