all the advantages of ragged schools. The salvation of society from a
host of harpies is not the main chance; neither is it that the poor
wretches are sold into the slavery of vice and misery before they know
right from wrong. There's something more. I have a suspicion that
society loses often what might become its sharpest and most intelligent
members in these half-starved youngsters, whose first putting out of the
hand is the beginning of a battle with the world. I'm not to try to
account for the fact, but I am pretty well satisfied, from all I have
seen, that the children of these poor half-starved people are something
more apt than the sons of your gentlemen. You who are learned may try
your hand at the paradox, and make as much of it as you do of the other
riddles of human life. Here is a plea for the John Poundses and Dr
Guthries, of which they could make something. Every ragged urchin they
lay hold of to make him learn from books has been at a school of another
kind, where he has got his energies sharpened on a different whetstone
from that found within a school, and then the school does its duty in
directing these energies.
Just fancy what some of our card-sharpers would have been if their
cleverness had been directed towards honest and lawful undertakings. I
have known some of these gentlemen so adroit at the great problem of
ways and means that they might have shone as Chancellors of the
Exchequer. It is not their fault that we find them out. Their great
drawback is, that they begin to be cunning and adroit before they know
the world. All this close cunning defeats itself. The young rogues put
me often in mind of moles. They work in dark holes, but they are always
coming near the surface, where they hitch up friable hillocks to let air
in, and so are caught. Nay, they sometimes hitch themselves out into the
mid-day sun of justice. I have at this moment two or three of these
misdirected geniuses in my eye whom I have traced from early
childhood--ay, that period when the Raggedier officers should have laid
hold of them.
In April 1854, an honest joiner in Banff of the name of Donald M'Beath,
had taken it into his head that he would do well to go to England, where
his talents would be appreciated. In short, Donald had working within
him the instinct of that little insect so familiar to the Highlanders,
the tendency of which is to go south--probably because it knows in some
inscrutable way that Englishmen have thick blood. Then he had friends in
Newcastle who had gone before him, and found out that the yellow blood
corpuscles of the social body flowed there more plentifully than in
Banff. Were I to be more fanciful, I would say that Donald M'Beath had
the second sight--for money. He loved it so well that he had stomach for
"ta hail Pank of England," and would "maype return in ta grand coach and
ta grey horses." Nor had this love been as yet without fruits, for he
had by Highland penury saved no less a sum than seven pounds, all stowed
away in a sealskin spleuchan, besides seven more which he had laid out
on a capital silver watch--convinced that no Highland shentleman bearing
a royal name, as he did, could pass muster in England without this
commodity.
The Highlanders were never at any time in the habit of getting lighter
or leaner by moving from one place to another, if they were not
generally a good deal heavier at the end of their journey than at the
beginning. So true to the genius of his race, he laid his plans so that,
in progressing south, he would lay contributions on his "friends" all
the way, in order that, if it "could pe possible," he might keep the
seven pounds all entire--some extra shillings being provided for the
voyage in the _Britannia_ from Leith to Newcastle. How many Highland
cousins suffered during this transport of the valuable person of the
King's clansman till he got to Leith, I never had any means of knowing.
We cannot be far wrong, however, in supposing that he shook them all
heartily by the hand; and no pedigree of the M'Farlans from Parlan
downwards, was ever courted with more industry than that of the
M'Beaths, if it was possible to bring within the tree any collateral
branch with M'Beath blood in his veins, meal in his girnal, and a bed
fit for a Highlander. Then the shake of the hand, and the "Oigh, oigh"
of true happiness, were the gratitude which is paid beforehand--the only
kind that Donald knew anything of; or any other body I suspect--at least
if I can judge from what I have received from so many to whom I have
given lodgings, meat, and free passages.
Arrived at Leith, the first thing Donald did was to get out the little
bit of snuff-coloured paper which contained the names of the cousins,
and where, among the rest, was that of an old woman in the Kirkgate who
was a descendant of the sister of Donald's grandmother, a Macnab,--as
unconscious of being related to the clan of the murderous king as any
one could be, before such a flood of light was cast upon her history as
Donald was well able to shed. He soon found her out; and though Janet
Macnab could make nothing of the pedigree, she could count feelings of
humanity; and what was more, she had a supper and a bed to save an
infraction upon the said seven pounds.
Next morning, after having partaken of a Highland breakfast from poor
Janet, which could only be calculated by the professions of eternal
friendship uttered by a Gael, Donald went forth to see the craft which
in some cheap berth was to transport him to the land of gold; and, to
be sure, it was not long till he saw the vessel lying alongside of the
quay. No doubt she was to be honoured in her freight. It was not every
day the _Britannia_ carried a M'Beath with seven pounds in his pocket, a
seven-pound watch in his fob, and a chest of tools, which was to cut his
way to fortune. Then if it were just possible that the captain had ever
been in Banff, or had in his veins a drop of Celtic blood--he would
ascertain that by and by, he might even be a M'Beath or a M'Nab.
Much, however, as he expected from the clanship of the captain of the
_Britannia_, who was not then to be seen, he had sense enough to know
that that officer could not abate his passage-money. Nay, he knew that
he must take out his ticket at the office on the shore, and thither he
accordingly hied to make a bargain. Unfortunately these tickets are not
liable to be affected by Highland prigging; but the loose shillings to
which I have alluded allowed him still to retain untouched the seven
pounds. Yea, that seven pounds seemed to have a charmed life, the charm
being only to be broken by some such wonder as the march of some wood or
forest from one part of the kingdom to the other, or by the man who
should try to take it having been from the belly of a shark "untimely
ript."
It wanted still some considerable time until the _Britannia_ sailed, and
Donald thought that he might as well get his chest of tools and bag of
clothes put on board. He accordingly hied away to Mrs M'Nab's, and
having returned his thanks for her kindness, if he did not promise her a
part of his fortune "when it should be made," he got the packets on his
broad shoulders, and proceeded to the vessel. He was more lucky this
time. A seaman, very probably the captain, was busy walking the deck.
"Hallo, tare!" cried Donald to the seaman, "you'll pe ta captain?"
"Yes, all right," replied the other; "and you'll be a passenger for
Newcastle; what have you got there?"
"My tool-chest and clothes," replied Donald; "fery valuable, cost seven
pounds ten shillings."
"Heave them along the gunwale there," said the seaman, "they can be
stowed away afterwards; but you're too soon, we wont heave off for an
hour."
"Ower sune is easy mended," replied the Gael.
"And sometimes," in a jolly way, said the other, "we have time for a
dram."
"Ay, and inclination maype too," cried Donald, quite happy.
"Come away, then, our lockers are shut, so we'll have it up the way,
where I know they keep the real peat-reek, and I'll pay."
And Donald, leaving his luggage, but carrying with him a notion that the
captain of the _Britannia_ deserved to be one of her Majesty's Admirals
of the Blue, followed his guide until they entered the house of the
publican, whose name I do not at present recollect. Nor was this notion
in any way modified even when they were seated at the same table with
three very respectable-looking men, apparently engaged in the harmless
pastime of playing at cards. Nay, the notion was evidently shared by the
three strangers, who, although they had clearly never seen the captain
of the _Britannia_ before, offered him, with a generosity wonderful to
Donald, a share of their liquor. On his side, the generosity was
equalled by his insisting that they, whom he declared he had never seen
before, should take a part of his. Never was there such generous
unanimity among strangers; and even Donald was included in the new-born
friendship. Then the harmless play went on. There were only three cards
used, two diamonds and one clubs; and the game was so simple that the
Gael understood it in a moment, for it consisted in a little shuffling,
and if one drew the clubs, he was the winner of the stakes. The generous
captain laid down a stake of a pound; one of the players laid down
another; then the cards were shuffled in so obvious a manner that a
child might have seen where the clubs lay; and so to be sure the captain
saw what a child might have seen, drew the slip, and pocketed the two
pounds. This was repeated, until the captain pocketed six pounds; and
Donald seeing fortune beckoning on, tabled one of the seven with the
charmed unity. None of these men had been cut out of the belly of a
shark, and so Donald M'Beath's seven was made eight.
"Play on," whispered the captain, "while I go to look after your
luggage."
And so to be sure the Highlander did. He staked pound after pound,
gained once in thrice, got furious, and staked on and on till the seven
was nil.
Then rose the Highlander's revenge; the watch was tabled against seven
pounds, and went at a sweep.
"And now, py Cot, to croon a', ta _Pritannia_ will be gone," he cried,
as he rushed out in agony.
Frantic as he was, he could yet find his way to the part of the pier
where he expected to see the vessel with the noble captain on board. The
steamer was gone; and as he stood transfixed in despair, a man came up
to him.
"Was it you who carried some luggage on board the _Britannia_ about an
hour ago?"
"Ay, just me."
"Well, then, I saw a man dressed in seaman's clothes carry it away. He
seemed to make for Edinburgh, likely by the Easter Road."
"And whaur is ta Easter Road?" cried the Gael, as he turned round to run
in some direction, though in what he knew not.
At length, after many inquiries, he got into the said road, and hurrying
along at the top of his speed, he expected every moment to see the
captain. He questioned every one he met, got no trace, and began to lose
hope with breath; for, long ere this, he had seen the full scope of his
folly, and suspected that the captain was one of the cardsharpers.
Fairly worn out,--more the consequence of the excited play of his lungs
and galloping blood than the effect of his chase,--he slackened his pace
when he came to the Canongate. There he was--a ruined man, not a penny
left, the hopes of a fortune blasted, even his tool-chest, with which he
might have cut his way anywhere, gone,--a terrible condition, no doubt,
not to be even conceived properly by those who have not experienced the
shock of sudden and total ruin. No sight had any interest for him, no
face any beauty or ugliness, except as it carried any feature like what
he recollected of his cruel and heartless companions. Nor was he free
from self-impeachment, blaming his love of money as well as the
blindness of his credulity. While in this humour, and making his way by
inquiry to the Police-office, he met right in the face, and seemed to
spring up three inches as he detected the features of one of his
spoilers. In an instant, his hand clutched, with the tension of a
tiger's muscle, the gasping throat of the villain. The Highland blood
was boiling, and you might have seen the red glare of his eye, as if all
his revenge for what he considered to be the ruin of a life had been
concentrated in that one terrible glance. The sharper, strong, and with
all the recklessness of a tribe of the most desperate kind, was only as
a sapling in his grasp.
"My money and my watch, you tam villain!"
Words which, accompanied by the contortion of Gaelic gesticulation, only
brought about him a crowd, among whom two constables made their
appearance. The sharper was transferred to their hands, glad enough to
be relieved of his more furious antagonist, and all the three made for
the Office.
It was at this part of the strange drama I came into play. The moment I
saw the Highlander enter with his man, I suspected the nature of the
complaint, for I knew he was from the country, and the sharper, David
Wallace, was one of my most respected _protégés_ in the card and
thimblerigging line; but I required the information given me by the
Highlander to make me understand all the dexterity of the trick which
the pseudo-captain of the _Britannia_ had practised. The club, I knew,
consisted of four, David Wallace, Richard Kyles, John Dewar, and John
Sweeny. It was regularly organised, each man having attached to him his
gillet of a helpmate, ready to secrete or carry the watches and other
property won by their lords at this most unequal game. I have always
considered those daylight sharpers, who, without instruments other than
three cards or three thimbles and a pea, contrive to levy extensive
contributions on society, as men worthy to have been drawn into the
ranks of honest citizens, where their talents could not have failed to
elevate them into wealth. Even the manipulation of these simple
instruments is more wonderful than the tricks of a conjurer. Fix your
eyes as you may, be suspicious even to certainty that the player is
cheating you, I will defy you to detect the moment when, by the light if
not elegant touch of the finger, your pea has been slipped from the
right thimble to the wrong, or the right card to the wrong--yea, to the
end, you could swear that no deception has been or could be practised
upon you; and even when your watch is forfeited you could hardly think
but that your misfortune lay on some defect in your power of
penetration. And so it does. You are cheated--nay, _fairly cheated_. You
can't expect from such men that they should undertake not to deceive
you. If they had no art, you would ruin them in five minutes, for all
you would have to do (and you insist on the unfair privilege) is to
watch the thimble under which your fortune lies and snatch it. There is,
therefore, no pity due to the victims of these men's deceptions, and
this we can say with a thorough condemnation of the men themselves.
As soon as I understood the transaction, it was my duty to detect the
right thimble, and I had no fear of deception. I sent Wallace, under
charge of a constable, to the Leith Office, and told M'Beath that I
would have the three others there in the course of a couple of hours. I
had no doubt that Dewar, the cleverest of them, had personated the
captain, and that he had rejoined his associates to share the booty. I
knew their haunt, a public-house in Bristo Street, and, taking Riley
with me, I went direct to the place. My luck was nothing less than
wonderful. Just as I entered I met my three men coming out of a room,
and holding out my arms--
"Stop, gentlemen," said I; "I have got something to say to you."
But I didn't need to say it. They understood me as well as I did them.
"Captain Dewar of the _Britannia_," said I, looking to Dewar.
"At your service," replied the rogue, with a spice of humour, at which,
in the very midst of their choking wrath, they could not help leering.
Well, the old process. "Search," said I; "I want seven pounds and a
watch."
And calling in my assistant, I began my search. No resistance. They were
too well up to their calling.
I found the watch on Wallace. No more. The pounds had been given to the
fancies.
I kept my word by having them all three at Leith within a couple of
hours, safely lodged in prison. They were afterwards tried by the Leith
magistrates, aided by an assessor, and sentenced to sixty days each,
with sixty more if they did not give up the money and luggage. The
sentence seemed judicious, and in one sense it was; but the worthy
bailies did not consider that they were offering a premium on the
seductive and depredating energies of the trulls, who (long after the
seven pounds was spent) in order to get their birds out of the cage, set
about their arts and redeemed them from bondage.
The Cobbler's Knife.
You will have perceived that among my mysteries I have never had
anything to do with dreams or dream-mongers. My dreams have been all of
that peep-o'-day kind when a man is "wide awake" as they say, and "up to
a thing or two." Not to say that I disbelieve in dreams when they have a
streak of sunlight in them, as all veritable ones have. Nor is the
strange case I am about to relate free from the suspicion that the dream
which preceded a terrible act, was just a daylight feeling reflected
from some dark corner of the brain.
In 1835, I met one morning, as I was going to commence the duties of the
day, William Wright, shoemaker in Fountain Close. He had been drinking
the evening before, for his eyes were red and swollen, and he had the
twittering about the tumified top of the cheeks, which shews that the
inflammation is getting vent. There was some wildness in his look, and,
as it afterwards appeared, something in his talk with a deeper meaning
than I could comprehend.
"You have had more than enough last night, William," said I.
"Why, yes," replied he, "James and I had a bout, and I am off work for
an hour or two till my hand steadies."
"Better for you and your wife if your hand was always steady," said I,
as I made a movement to walk on.
"Do you believe in dreams?"
"Some," replied I, meaning the streaked ones I have alluded to. "Why do
you put that question?"
"Because," replied he, "I am quite disturbed this morning by one I had
last night. I thought that James Imrie stabbed me with the knife I cut
my leather with."
"But James hasn't done it yet, has he?"
"No, but I awoke as angry at him as if he had; and though I have come
out to get a mouthful of fresh air, I can't get quit of my wrath."
"Angry at a dream," said I, as I looked into William's scowling face. "I
thought we had all quite enough to be angry at, without having recourse
to dreams."
"Ay, but I can't help it," said he again; "I have been trying to shake
it off, but it won't do."
"It will fly off with the whisky fever, William," said I. "James and you
are old friends, and you mustn't allow a dream to break your
friendship."
"Wouldn't like that either," was the reply. "He's a good-natured
creature, and I like him; but I can't get quit of his visage as he
stuck the knife into me. It has haunted me all the morning."
"So that you would reverse the dream, and make it true by _contraries_,
as the old ladies do, when they can't get things to fit--by sticking the
knife into _him_?"
"No, I wouldn't feel it in my heart to stab the best friend I have,"
said he; and looking wistfully into my face with his bloodshot eyes, he
added, "But maybe a glass with James will wear it off."
"Yes, of pure spring water from the Fountain well there," said I.
"I never was very fond of water," said he, with a kind of grim smile,
"nor is it very fond of me. One can't talk over it."
"Your old political twists, William," said I, as I recollected a curious
theory he sported everywhere, and was rather mad upon.
"Oh, but I don't hate James for opposing me in that. I rather like him
the better for it. We get fun out of it."
"The more reason," said I, "for you to give up your ill-natured fancy.
Stab you!--why, man, James Imrie is so inoffensive a creature, that,
though a flesher's runner, he wouldn't flap a fly that blows his beef,
unless it were a very tempting bluebottle."
"I believe it," said he, looking a little more calm; "and I will try to
forget the face. I will be better after my breakfast."
So I left William to his morning meal, suspecting that there would be a
dram before it, thinking too of the strange fancy that had taken
possession of him, but never dreaming that anything would come of it. It
was sometime afterwards that the thread of the story again recurred to
my mind, and what I have now to relate was derived from a conversation I
had with Wright himself at a time when he was likely to speak the truth.
I cannot answer for every word of the conversation I am to report, but I
have little doubt that the substance comes as near the thing as other
recitals of the same kind, recorded a considerable time after they have
occurred.
It appeared that James Imrie, according to his old habit, and without
knowing anything of William's dream, had left his house in Skinner's
Close, and gone to his friend's, for the purpose of having a crack and a
spark. William, who was at the time busy with a job of cobbling which he
had promised to finish that night, received his friend with all his
usual warmth, but, what was strange enough, without saying a word of his
dream. James sat at a little side-table near William's stool, and some
whisky was produced, according to their old fashion; for the shoemaker,
like other political cobblers, liked nothing better than to spin his
politics and take his dram while he was plying his awl and rosin-end. So
scarcely had the first glass been swallowed, when William got upon his
hobby--"The five acres and the thousand pounds" doctrine as he used to
call it, and which the reader will understand as the conversation
progresses. Poor James was no great adept at the sublime mystery that,
like Fourier's, was to regenerate the world, and make every snob and
flesher's runner as happy as the denizens of Paradise; and therefore,
with his tardy thoughts and slow Scotch pronunciation, was no match for
his book-read and voluble antagonist; but he was a good "butt," and that
was all probably that Wright cared for--his sole ambition being to speak
and to be heard speaking by any one, however unable to understand the
extent of his learning.
"There now," began William, "I have been reading in the _Scotsman_
to-day that the Duke of Buccleuch has a thousand a-day. Good Lord! just
think, if all the land possessed by this one man, made of clay no finer
than the potter's, and maybe not so well turned, was divided into
ploughgates, how many poor people would be lairds, and rendered happy."
"But if we were a' lairds," drawled James, "wha wad mak' the shoon and
rin wi' the beef?"
"They would make their own shoes out of their own leather, and rear
their own beef," was the triumphant reply. "Then, people say I'm for
French equality. I'm not. The idiots don't understand the 'five acres
and thousand pounds' doctrine. No man should have more than that
quantity of land, or that sum of money. The overplus should be taken
from him and divided."
"It looks weel," replied James, with a good-natured smile; "but how
would it work? It puts me in mind o' Laird Gilmour's plan wi' his snuff.
'Let every prudent man ken,' said he, 'that there's twa hundred pinches
in half an unce; and let him keep count as he taks every pinch, and his
nose will never cheat him, and he'll never cheat his nose.' I've tried
it, but I aye lost count."
"Nonsense, man! You're just like the rest, trying to crack a joke at the
expense of a grand scheme for benefiting our species. You forget that
under our present idiotic system a poor man cannot often get his half
ounce to divide into pinches, whereas under the 'five acres and thousand
punds' doctrine you could rear your own tobacco, dry it, make Taddy of
it, and then snuff it, without the necessity of your arithmetic."
"And mak' our ain whisky tae," rejoined James, "and get a' drunk?"
"No," responded the theorist. "We might certainly distil our own whisky,
but not get all drunk. Drunkenness is the consequence of our present
system, where poverty makes misery, and misery flies to the bottle, and
where bloated wealth produces epicures, who disdain whisky, but wallow
in wine from morning to night."
"And yet they're no ill chields, thae grand folk, after a'," said James.
"Mony a shilling I get when my basket's emptied. It comes a' round. If
they get, they gie; and they're no unmindfu' o' the puir."
"I'm poor," cried the cobbler; "do they mind me? No. They grind me down
to a farthing, and are ready to say, when I support the rights of
labour, 'Well, labour then, and be paid; and when you can't work, you
have the workhouse between you and starvation.' And yet I have a soul as
noble as theirs."
"And nobler," said James, with his quiet humour; "for you would mak' a
paradise o' the world, and every ane o' us an angel, without wings; but
we wouldna' need wings, for wha would think o' fleeing out o' paradise?"
"Your old mockery, James," said Wright, a little touched. "The great
problem of the happiness of mankind is not a subject for ridicule."