the High Street on the strangeness of the affair, small though it
was--for a little animal is just as curious in its organization as a big
one, and I've heard of some great man who lost his eyesight by peering
too closely into these small articles of nature's workmanship. I didn't
intend to lose mine, and yet I couldn't give over thinking, though it is
just as sure as death that I saw no connexion between what I had heard
noticed and the larder affair, neither then nor afterwards, during the
entire day. Besides, another business took the subject out of my head,
so that I thought no more of it.
Next morning, as I was proceeding to the Office, my attention was again
called to the mystery of the mustard-blister, by encountering the lady
of Ballynagh carrying a stoup of water from the Fountain Well, and I
couldn't resist a few words as I passed.
"Well, Mrs Riddel," said I, with true official gravity, "how is your
darling's throat after the blister?"
"And it's you that has the impidence to ask it?" replied she; "are you a
docthor?"
"Yes, I sometimes try to mend people when they're _bad_."
"To kill them, you mane, and the heart ov many a dacent widdow besides,"
was the reply.
"But I didn't make Bill's throat sore this time."
"No more ye did; but small thanks to ye, for wouldn't ye hang him, if
yez could? and, shure, to hang a man wid the proud flesh in his throat
would be a mighty plaisant thing to the likes ov ye; and didn't I look
down it wid me own eyes?"
"But Bill says he never had a sore throat in his life."
"And isn't that becase he's so bowld a boy?" replied she. "He never
complains, becase he knows it would hurt me; but is that any raison I
shouldn't blisther him when he's ill? And didn't I know he was ill when
he could only spake like a choking dog, and couldn't for the life ov him
take a cup of tay or ate a bit ov bread?"
And taking up her pitcher, she hurried away, leaving me as much in the
dark as ever on this great subject, destined to become so much greater
before even that day was done, but not by any exertions of mine, for as
yet I could see nothing in it beyond the fact that there was some
incident required to be known to bring out the fitness of things. Nor
was it long before I got satisfaction. The day was a strolling one with
me, more a look-out for "old legs" than a pursuit after new ones, and
for some reason which I don't now recollect, I was in Hanover Street,
along which I had got (it was now dark) a short way when I observed a
sweep coming along with a jolly leg of mutton in his hand. We are
sometimes blamed for being somewhat curious in our inquiries into the
nature of carried parcels, but here there was so much of the real
unfitness of things that I might, I thought, be justified in my
curiosity--all the more, too, when I discovered that the proprietor or
carrier was my friend of the sore throat.
"Where got you the leg of mutton, Bill?" inquired I, as I stood before
him, and stopped his quick pace, intended to be much quicker the moment
he saw me.
"The leg of mutton?" replied he, taken aback.
"Yes," said I, "just the leg of mutton. It is so seldom you have a thing
of that kind about you that I feel curious to know."
"You might as well ask that gentleman where he got his umbrella or his
coat," was the cool reply.
"Not just the same," said I; "but I do not choose to point out the
difference. Where got you it?"
"Bought it to be sure, and that's enough for you."
"Quite enough," said I, "if you did buy it, and I confess you have a
good taste. A better leg I haven't seen for a long time. An 'old leg'
too, and just kept long enough to be tender. Who's your butcher?"
"What's that to you?"
"Perhaps I might fancy one the same," said I; for I felt inclined to
play a little as the idea of the mustard began to tickle my brain and
make me merry. "I might even fancy that one and offer a premium upon
it."
"What premium?" he said, perhaps not knowing very well what to say.
"Perhaps sixty days and 'skeely' without a drop of mustard."
The word operated like a charm on my sooty epicure, but he didn't seem
to understand it any way, looking into my face inquisitively, and no
doubt remembering the conversation about the blister without being able
to connect the two things, for doubtless his mother had told him
nothing of his sore throat and of the remedy.
"Come," said I, "there are just two ways. You take me to the butcher's
shop or I take you to mine."
Bill was too sensible a fellow not to see, even without the quickening
of the blister, that it was all up with him, and so accordingly,
carrying his leg of mutton, he accompanied me very quietly to the
Office, where I deposited him and his burden. I now examined the leg
with the view of endeavouring to ascertain whether it might be
identified, for I was here in the position I was in that morning I had
so much difficulty about my booty in the Cock and Trumpet. But I soon
discovered what I thought might serve my purpose, and, telling the
lieutenant to take care not to allow the leg to be handled, I took my
way to the Fountain Close, where I found my proud lady of Ballynagh
sitting at her ease, no doubt expecting her son in by and by, or at
least before supper, which supper he would doubtless bring in himself,
she providing the mustard.
"I'm just here again," said I, as I opened the door and went in.
"Ay, always shoving in your nose where you've no more right to be than
in heaven, where you'll never have any right at all," replied she. "What
wid me now?"
"I just want to know, Mrs Riddel, what you did with the ounce of
mustard you bought two nights ago at Mr M'Dougal's?"
"The musthard?" she exclaimed, at the top of her voice.
"Just the 'raal Durham.'"
"The raal Durham! and what should I do wid it but make a blisther for
Bill's throat, as I towld ye before, and tell ye agin?"
"And yet here is the most of it in this cup, ready made for supper,"
said I, as I took from the old cupboard the article, and held it before
her.
"And was I to use it all at wunst for a blisther, d'ye think, ye mighty
docthor M'Lavy?" said she, with something of her usual greatness; "and
isn't his throat sore yet, and won't he naid the rest ov it this very
night?"
"Then what will become of this fine piece of salt beef?" said I, as I
pulled out of the same recess the article which appeared so strange in a
small hovel, with two chairs and a table, and scarcely a bit of
furniture besides. "You must reserve a little for it?"
"And who gave ye the power to spake about my mate, and ask whether I ate
musthard to it or not? Isn't it me own?"
"That's just what I want to know," said I, as I took out my handkerchief
to roll it up in.
"And who knows that better than the woman who bought it, and salted it,
ay, and put saltpatre upon it, and hung it, and boiled it?"
"And told me that the mustard was for her son's throat," said I.
"Ay, and the thruth, too, every word ov it."
"Well, I'm going to take the beef to the Police Office, where Bill is,"
said I; "I will leave you the mustard."
"If you are going to be a thaif, take it altogether," she cried, "and
may the devil blister your throat before you try to ate what belongs to
a poor widdow! And you've ta'en up the boy agin, have yez?"
"Yes."
"For stailing his own mate?"
"And if you are not quiet," said I, "I will return and take up you for
helping him to eat it."
"And that would just make the right ind ov it, you murtherin' spoiler ov
widdows and orphans."
And now that she had begun to abuse me I might get more of her "good
words" than I wanted, so I left her, hearing, as I went down stairs, as
many of the widow's malisons as would have served, if they had been
blessings, for the contents of all the rifled larders.
I had nearly got to the Office when a cook from Inverleith Terrace came
and reported the theft of a leg of mutton. I was now pretty certain I
had not overstepped my duty in apprehending Bill, but the difficulty
remained as to the identification.
"Would you know your leg if you saw it?" inquired I.
"As easily as I would know my own, if it were cut off," she replied,
with a grim smile.
"Is that it, then?" said I, as I shewed her the article.
"The very leg," said she. "There's the wether mark and the snip off the
tail, to shew me which I was to use first, and to-morrow is the great
dinner day."
"I was trusting to the string," said I, as I held within my hand the
piece by which the leg had been hung on the hook.
"And so you might," replied she, "for it is a piece of an old window
cord which was lying on the dresser, and the rest of it is still in the
kitchen."
"Is that it?"
"The very bit; I tied it with my own hands. But how, in the name of all
that's wonderful, has the leg found its way here before me?"
"Never you mind that," said I. "You will be able to swear to the
article?"
"Ay; but what am I to do for the dinner?"
"Why," said I, "you could scarcely serve up to your master and his
guests a leg of mutton that had been stolen by a sweep, and been in the
Police Office. Our 'old legs' don't get into high company when they
leave our society."
For the leg Bill was supplied with the "raal Durham" in the shape of
twelve months' imprisonment.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
I rememember that=> I remember that {pg 48}
through a mean of the residence=> through a means of the residence {pg
105}