were broken into, and robbed of a vast number of portable articles of
great value. The families had left the houses to go to the country; and
the robbers, being aware that there was nobody to disturb them, had gone
about their selection of articles with much artistic deliberation and
skill, taking only those things which could be melted, such as silver
utensils, or altered or dyed, such as silk dresses, shawls, and the
like. We got intimation first of the Minto Street affair, for it was
some time before it came to be known even to the proprietor that the
house in Claremont Street had been disturbed. Having got my commission,
I very soon came to the conclusion that, for a time at least, there
could be no discovery by tracing the articles; and just as soon to
another, that the whole were secreted, probably in a mass, in some of
the lodging-houses resorted to by the gang--for that there was a gang I
had no manner of doubt--nor was I at a loss about some of the component
parts of the crew,--at least I knew that one or two well-known
housebreakers had been seen in the city, and their affinities are almost
a matter of course with us.
There was ingenuity, therefore, required in this affair beyond the mere
care in dogging some of the artists to their dormitories, and this I
soon accomplished by tracing Jane Walker, one of their callets, to the
house of one Sim at the West Port. Other bits of intelligence
contributed to the conclusion, that Sim's house was the sleeping place
of some of them, and the rendezvous of the whole pack. As I have already
said, I have always had a craving for a full haul when I put out my net,
and take my seat in the cobble to see the wily tribe get into the
meshes. So on this occasion I made my arrangements with this view. At a
late hour one night I took with me several constables and proceeded to
Sim's house. I arranged my men in such a way that egress was scarcely
possible, while some one would be ready to help me inside in the event
of an emergency; for it is no indifferent affair to go bang in upon an
entire gang of desperate burglars, especially when there are women among
them--a remark which requires merely this explanation, that the women
egg up the men to resistance, and the men have often a desire to shew
off their prowess before their dulcineas.
Having presented myself at Sim's door, I heard a shout of merriment,
indicative of a goodly company; and I confess the sound, though rough
and brutal, was rather pleasant to me, for it satisfied me they were all
there, and, moreover, off their guard, through the seduction of their
tender dalliances. I am often fine in my self-introductions, but here I
found my cue in bluntness. I opened the door with a sudden click of the
sneck, and stood before as motley a crew of ruffians and viragoes as I
ever remember to have seen. Nor was the effect all on one side. If I was
amazed at seeing such a collection of celebrities, they were not less
astonished at seeing me. Laughter did not need to hold her sides, nor
Mockery to twist her chaps into mows, nor even Inebriety to flare up
into a rage. All was quiet in an instant, with every eye fixed upon me
as if by a charm. No placating subtlety was of any use among that gang.
They were up to every manoeuvre. Sim himself, James M'Culloch, John
Anderson, Hector M'Sally, James Stewart, Agnes Hunter, Sarah Jack,
Christian Anderson, and Jane Walker, had been all too well accustomed to
such blandishments as mine, to be thrown off their guard beyond the
instant of the working of the first charm. They simply took me for a
devil, who might seize their bodies for punishment, but could not insist
upon their pledges to be his for ever. In short, they knew the extent of
my power, as well as their necessities to resist it, but only if
resistance could be successful.
I had stopt their merriment;--but just allow me, as I stand for a moment
before them, to say, it is no merriment that these strange beings enjoy:
their hearts have no part in their laughter, which is a mere dry shaking
of the lungs, and better named as a cackle, or sometimes a vociferation.
It is almost always the result of a personal gibe; for there is no real
friendship to restrain them, and their art is a deadly fly that kills at
the first leap. They seem to find some relief from the tearing devil
within, by tearing their brother devils without; and though it is done
under the semblance of fun, it is as cruel and wicked as they can make
it. But then the very cruelty in the personality gets applause; the
laugh rings, and every one has his turn to be quizzed and gibed--the
bearing of which, again, is a kind of stern virtue among them. It is all
a heart-burning, with a flickering ebullition over the surface; and the
effort seems to be to produce pain, and yet to make it pass as a kind
of pleasure. I know them well; and could, at a distance, distinguish
between the merriment of people with sound hearts, and that of these
artificial beings, as well as I could do were I among them, and knew the
two sets of characters.
A moment sufficed for my introduction.
"There are some things that have gone amissing," said I, "and I want to
know whether any of them are here."
"Nothing," said Sim; but the manner of his "nothing" shewed me it was a
misnomer for "something."
"No harm in seeing. I don't charge any of you, but I may just say that
you are as safe in your seats there, as you could be if you had wings
and used them. I have friends at the door, so--quiet. Sim, I want to
speak with you in the other room. Get a candle."
All authority lies in bearing. The man obeyed like a machine, got his
dip lighted, and followed me into the small room, (there were only two
in the house,) when I took the light from him, with the intention of
looking into hidden places, but there was strangely enough no necessity
for searching. There before me stood a huge trunk or box, more like a
coal bunker or ship's locker than a chest, and sufficient to have held
within its capacious sides a jeweller's stock. Knocking my foot against
it, and finding it heavy with contents,
"Why," said I, "how comes this to be here?"
"All right," replied the man; "nothing of yours there."
"Let me see," said I. "Get me the key."
"The key is with the proprietor," said he, coolly. "Why you know, sir,
it's an emigrant's box that there, and he has merely left it with me
till the ship sails, when he will return for it--all right."
"And there's nothing in it belonging to these gentry in the kitchen?"
"Not a handkerchief."
"Well," said I, "as I don't wish this trunk to _emigrate_ before I know
what's inside, I will break it open."
And going into the kitchen, I seized a big salamander, standing by the
fire, and without saying a word to the no doubt wondering company, who
were working hard to look easy, I returned to the room. Up to this kind
of work, I managed, by getting a lever point for my poker, to send the
top of the box in splinters in a very few minutes, but with a crash
which, like the laughter of my friends in the kitchen, had more sound
than music in it. And lo! there was a sight--a veritable curiosity
box--a bazaar in miniature; in short, as I afterwards ascertained, all
the valuables abstracted not only from the house in Minto Street, but
from that in Claremont Crescent, had been brought together, as if by the
hand of Prospero's little friend, for my gratification, and yet with no
bidding from me.
I had taken a large liberty, and I must take a larger to justify the
first. I had provided myself with some of Mrs M'G----r's marks--the
lady in Minto Street--so I straightway began to turn out the fine
poplins and silks, which overlaid the jewellery at the bottom, till I
could find a handkerchief or some article bearing a name, and that I
very soon did, in a damask towel, bearing "M'G. 6." I was now relieved
from all fears of a misused freedom.
"All right," said I.
And going to the door, I called on my men. There was here a little
mismanagement. They were not so close as they should have been, and
M'Sally and Stewart, the real burglars, getting desperate, jostled the
first officer, and pushing him up against the wall, escaped; nor were
the other men sufficiently on the alert to be able to intercept them, so
that they got themselves reserved, as it were, for a fate which is the
real burden of my story.
The trunk, and all the remaining members of the gang, were straightway
under better keeping than that of Mr Sim, who considered all _so_ right;
but I had to lament the want of my _chiefs_, the very men on whom my
mind was set, and for whom I would have given the whole contents of the
locker; but I was not to be done out of them by a mere flight, which did
not exclude me from a long shot, and that shot I proceeded to prepare.
The prior history of M'Sally enabled me to suspect that he was away down
by the east coast to get to London, and I had no doubt Stewart would
accompany him, so I straightway got the Lieutenant to forward their
portraits to Berwick-on-Tweed, Newcastle, and Shields, with directions
to the different Lieutenants to seize and send them back to Edinburgh,
where they were specially wanted. As matters turned out, this was a
happy suggestion, and proved a comfort to me after my distress.
My gentlemen, just as I suspected, had made their way down to Berwick,
with very little money as it appeared, yet with such a locker at home,
upon which they had expected to live and feast for many months, (alas,
the vanity of human wishes!) and arrived there pretty late at night.
They, of course, wanted lodgings, and why should they not get them for
nothing, where the philanthropic people of the old town, reversing their
former fire-eating character, had prepared the town-hall, of ancient
renown for bellicose orations, as a place of refuge for the destitute.
The two refugees were even in their misfortunes inclined to be humorous,
and took it into their heads to act the part of industrious "tramps,"
travelling to the south in search of work, and apply for a night's
lodging at the very town-hall itself. But who had the privilege of
giving out the tickets? Why, who better qualified than the
Superintendent of Police himself, who could, from his office, make the
proper distinction between the really deserving applicants, and those to
whom a jail was a more fitting place of abode? And so it was the
Superintendent had the charge of the house of refuge as well as the
house of bondage. They had run away for housebreaking, and escaped the
fiend M'Levy, and there was a neat squareness in playing off a trick
upon his brother of Berwick. A glimpse of the sunshine of fun comes well
after the gloom of misfortune; besides, sweet is refuge to the
houseless; and then a supper and a breakfast was not to be despised.
They were accordingly soon brought before the dispenser of refuge and
justice, who was busy at the time scanning a paper.
"Poor workmen, sir, going south in search of work," said M'Sally; "would
your honour pass us to the town-hall?"
"Where from?" said the Superintendent.
"Aberdeen."
"Your names?"
"James M'Intosh and John Burnet," was the reply.
"Blue coat and grey trousers," muttered the Superintendent, as he looked
at the paper--"blue coat and grey trousers," he repeated, as he glanced
at M'Sally. "Monkey jacket and buff vest," looking again at the
paper--"monkey jacket and buff vest," directing his eyes to Stewart.
"We have been travelling all day, sir," said Stewart, "and are weary;
please pass us on."
But the Superintendent was in no hurry.
"Grey eyes and foxey whiskers," he muttered, again getting more curious,
as he read and looked, and looked and read, still going over
features--"sharp nose, grey eyes, fiery-coloured whiskers--dark eyes and
black whiskers"--and so forth, until at last he came to the
conclusion--"the very men."
"Yes," he said, as he rose and touched a small bell, "I will pass you,
but not to the town-hall of Berwick."
"Any other quarters for poor destitutes will do, sir," said Stewart.
"What think you of the police-office of Edinburgh," said the
Superintendent, "where you, Hector M'Sally and Joseph Stewart, are,
according to this paper I have in my hands, and which I got just as you
entered, charged with breaking into a house in Minto Street, and another
in Claremont Crescent, and stealing therefrom many valuable articles."
"We are not the men," said the two, determinedly.
"Read your paper again, sir," said M'Sally, "and compare, and you'll
find we are not the men."
The Superintendent was taken aback, and did look again.
"Would you read out the description?" said M'Sally.
"I think you have got on a blue coat and grey trousers," said the
Superintendent.
"Yes, sir."
"And you have got grey eyes and foxey whiskers?"
"No, sir; black eyes and black whiskers."
"And you," said the Superintendent, a little put out, turning to
Stewart, "you have a monkey-jacket and buff vest?"
"Yes, sir."
"And black eyes and beard?"
"No, sir; grey eyes and light whiskers."
"Well, then, how stand your noses? You"--to M'Sally--"have a turned-up
one, and a little awry, I think?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you"--to Stewart--"have a very long one, raised in the middle?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, well; suppose the clothes of the one put upon the other--it was
easy for you to change them--and we have you to a button. Bertram, pass
these gentlemen to a cell for the night, and I shall get them sent off
to Edinburgh in the morning."
Next day we had a letter setting forth the dodge of the exchange, and
the curious way they had fallen into the hands of the Superintendent. It
was thence an easy business to get our two gentlemen to go to the right
shop--Norfolk Island--after having tried the wrong one at Berwick. They
and Anderson were transported for seven years. M'Culloch was acquitted.
The Mustard-Blister.
I believe that if any one were to look back upon his past life for the
purpose of tracing out the most curious parts of it, he would find that
they originated in the work of my old lady, Chance, and which is nothing
more than something occurring just at the moment when it is unlooked
for, but, being taken advantage of, turns out to be important. The great
secret is to be able to seize the advantage, and this, as concerns my
kind of work, lies in something like natural reasoning. If there's
anything out of the ordinary fitness of things, I begin to try to find
out why it should be so. Books and learning don't help a man here. I
have sometimes thought they rather work against him, and hence it is
that we find so many illiterate people rise up to be great and wealthy.
Ay, but they can also be clever in a bad way; so with our thieves; but I
have this consolation, that if their mother-wit has done a great deal
for them, mine has also to their cost done something for me. I will give
you a case.
In 1845, there were almost daily occurring cases of robbery from larders
in the New Town, and, what was more extraordinary, the accounts all
tallied as to the fact that the thieves were exceedingly dainty. It was
only the fine pieces of meat that would please them--large joints and
legs of mutton--nor did they seem to care for cold meat, in some
instances leaving it, as if they were above that kind of food. Of
course, I had my ordinary professional reasons for being active in
endeavouring to lay hold of these burglars, who seemed to be so envious
of the good things of their neighbours, but I confess to the weakness of
having had a little of that same feeling in regard to them. I was not
easy under the notion that any of my children should be thus living at
hack and manger in so very much more luxurious a manner than myself, and
felt a great desire to shew them the difference between these hot joints
and the fare I am in the habit of providing for them.
But how was I to get hold of them? Who could trace a leg of mutton after
it was cut down and eaten? No wee pawns for joints or beefsteaks, and
then the omnivorous gentry are generally so hungry that they could not
afford, however epicurean, to lay past, to get tender and
high-flavoured, a gigot of wether mutton or piece of venison. Then as to
catching red-hand, that was out of the question, for upon inquiry it was
found that the thieves never tried a larder a second time. I could, in
short, make no discovery, and I was more uncomfortable under my want of
success than I generally am, insomuch that my cooks were not only angry
at losing their joints, but driven into a passion at the gentry's
dinners being spoilt by the disappearance on the previous night of some
"old leg" which had been kept a fortnight for the very occasion, and
which could not be supplied by the butcher. Their honour was at stake,
and we all know what the honour of a _cuisinière_ amounts to when the
same is calculated by the dripping lips of a _gobe-mouche_. I have
caught "old legs," which, like Madeira, had been sent over the sea to
improve, and have found them improved in the contrary way, but here my
"old legs" defied me.
I had given up hope, and my angry cooks were left to look better after
the joints that were to be used in future, when one night I happened to
go into the shop of Mr M'Dougal at the foot of the High Street. There
were several people in the shop, and I stood back, not to avoid the gaze
of Mrs Biddy Riddel of the Fountain Close, (her maiden name was O'Neil),
who didn't look for me, and didn't see me, for, in truth, I was after no
game that evening, but merely to avoid interfering with the customers.
Now was Biddy's turn to be served.
"Half an ounce ov good tay--an ounce ov sugar--and an ounce ov raal
Durham musthard," said she.
The purchase struck me as being singular, and I'm sure the grocer was of
the same opinion. I was perfectly aware that she was of the class of the
half-ounce-of-tea-and-glass-of-whisky buyers, and if she had asked the
whisky I would have considered the purchase as quite in the ordinary
way, but the "raal Durham" was quite another thing, and I could account
for it nohow.
I saw that the grocer had looked at Biddy when she asked the mustard,
just as if he felt inclined to ask what she was to do with so large a
quantity, nay, any quantity, however small, but he proceeded without
saying a word to tie up the tea and the sugar, then, coming to the third
article,
"Did you say an ounce of mustard, Mrs Riddel?"
"Ay, raal Durham."
"Why, that will go a far way with you," said Mr M'Dougal, as he looked
over to me, and laughed--a kind of interference with the rights of trade
that Biddy did not seem to relish.
"Wid me?" she said; "and why wid me? Shure, couldn't I buy a pound ov it
if I chose?"
"And most happy would I be to sell it to you," was the reply.
"Ay, and I may need a pound ov it too," she continued, "if it doesn't
plase the Lord to be kinder to me; for hasn't Willie caught a terrible
cowld, and amn't I to put a blisther on his throat this blissid night?"
"Ah, that's another thing, Mrs Riddel. I'm sorry for William. His trade
of chimney-sweeping takes him early out in the cold mornings."
"And shure it does," she replied; "but the never a bit less shame to ye
to think I was to ate musthard like honey and the devil a bit ov salt
mate to take wid it."
"I am sorry for the mistake," said the grocer, as he rolled up the small
packet, and Biddy laid down the pence.
"And so you may," added she, not altogether reconciled; "and, what's
more, have I not as good a right to a piece of salt bacon as the
gintry?"
And not contented yet without the parting salute--
"And ye don't know yet that we kept pigs at home, at Ballynagh; ay, an'
they more than paid the rint; and, what's more, bedad, we didn't need to
tie the bit ov bacon to the ind ov the string and swallow it, and thin
pull it out agin."
"I believe it, Mrs Riddel," said the grocer.
And then the last words came--
"And what's more, it wasn't straiked wid a hunger and a burst, like your
gintry's. Just purty white and red where it should be; and we had
musthard, too, galore, when we wanted it. Shure, and I've settled your
penn'orth, anyhow."
And so she had; for as she went grandly away, carrying in her hand her
half-ounce of tea, and in her head the honour of Ballynagh, Mr M'Dougal
looked as if he had committed an error in joking as he had done on the
wants of the poor.
"You've raised the lady's dander," said I.
"Which I shouldn't have done," said he, "for her penny is as good to me
as another's; and then she needs the mustard for the _outside_ of her
son's throat, not the _in_."
To which sentiment I agreed, even with a little sympathy for the
feelings of a mother, whose penny for a blister for her son's throat was
just the tribute which she could ill spare paid from a mother's
affection to old Æsculapius. I confess to having been somewhat amused by
Biddy's Irish vindication of the rights of her family, but having been
merely amused, the interlude passed out of my mind--so completely so,
that by the next morning I was thinking of something very different from
Mrs Riddel and her invalid son, Willie, with the sore throat.
Next day I was passing the mouth of the Fountain Close, and whom did I
see standing there, with a pipe in his mouth, but Bill himself, arrayed
in his suit of black, with face of the same, indicating that he had been
at work in the morning? He was quite well known to me, and from a
circumstance which will appear ludicrous. I had occasion at one time to
separate him from a baker with whom he had quarrelled, and with whom,
also, he had fought so long that the two had so mixed colours that you
couldn't have told which was the man of the oven or the man of the
chimney; but the truth is, that he had more to answer for than thrashing
a baker, for he was an old offender in another way, where he took
without giving something more than dust. Of course it was a mystery to
me how he had so soon recovered from his sore throat, and the effects of
the "raal Durham."
"Well, Bill, how's your throat, lad?" said I, going up to him.
"My throat?" replied he; "nothing's wrong with it--never had a sore
throat in my life."
"Except once," said I.
"When?"
"When I took you by it rather roughly," said I.
"Unpleasant recollection," said the rogue. "Don't wish it mentioned.
Steady now,--nothing but lum-sweeping and small pay."
"And no mustard-poultice last night?"
"Mustard-poultice? Strange question! never had a mustard-poultice in my
life."
"Quite sure? let me see your throat."
"More sure than I am that you're not gibing a poor fellow," replied he,
pulling down his neckcloth. "I don't belong to you now, so be off,
unless you want me to sweep your vent for sixpence--cheap, as things go,
and I'll leave you the soot to hide your shame for what you did to me
yon time."
Well, I took the joke, and really I had no reason in the world for
doubting his word as to either the throat or the blister, but I confess
I was startled, and couldn't account for the discrepancy between the
story of the lady of Ballynagh and that of her son. Things were out of
their natural fitness, and there was some explanation required to bring
them into conformity with it and themselves. What that explanatory thing
was I couldn't tell, and so I walked into the grocer's.
"Why," said I, "Biddy Riddel's black darling has no sore throat, after
all. He is standing at the close-head quite well, with his throat, which
I have seen, as black as soot."
"Strange enough," said he.
"Have you sold her any ham of late?" said I, after musing a little.
"Too poor for that," he replied; "all goes for whisky, and Biddy's
half-ounces of tea, with, no doubt, a bit of coarse meat occasionally,
to which an ounce of Durham would, of course, be out of the question."
"Did she ever buy from you any mustard before?" I inquired again.
"Why, now when I recollect, yes," replied he. "About a week ago she had
an ounce. I had really forgotten that, when last night I touched her on
a tender part."