THE BODY-SNATCHER
Every night in the year, four of us sat in the small parlour of theGeorge at Debenham--the undertaker, and the landlord, and Fettes, andmyself. Sometimes there would be more; but blow high, blow low, comerain or snow or frost, we four would be each planted in his ownparticular armchair. Fettes was an old drunken Scotchman, a man ofeducation obviously, and a man of some property, since he lived inidleness. He had come to Debenham years ago, while still young, and by amere continuance of living had grown to be an adopted townsman. His bluecamlet cloak was a local antiquity, like the church-spire. His place inthe parlour at the George, his absence from church, his old, crapulous,disreputable vices, were all things of course in Debenham. He had somevague Radical opinions and some fleeting infidelities, which he wouldnow and again set forth and emphasise with tottering slaps upon thetable. He drank rum--five glasses regularly every evening; and for thegreater portion of his nightly visit to the George sat, with his glassin his right hand, in a state of melancholy alcoholic saturation. Wecalled him the Doctor, for he was supposed to have some specialknowledge of medicine, and had been known, upon a pinch, to set afracture or reduce a dislocation; but beyond these slight particulars,we had no knowledge of his character and antecedents.
One dark winter night--it had struck nine some time before the landlordjoined us--there was a sick man in the George, a great neighbouringproprietor suddenly struck down with apoplexy on his way to Parliament;and the great man's still greater London doctor had been telegraphed tohis bedside. It was the first time that such a thing had happened inDebenham, for the railway was but newly open, and we were allproportionately moved by the occurrence.
"He's come," said the landlord, after he had filled and lighted hispipe.
"He?" said I. "Who?--not the doctor?"
"Himself," replied our host.
"What is his name?"
"Doctor Macfarlane," said the landlord.
Fettes was far through his third tumbler, stupidly fuddled, now noddingover, now staring mazily around him; but at the last word he seemed toawaken, and repeated the name "Macfarlane" twice, quietly enough thefirst time, but with sudden emotion at the second.
"Yes," said the landlord, "that's his name, Doctor Wolfe Macfarlane."
Fettes became instantly sober; his eyes awoke, his voice became clear,loud, and steady, his language forcible and earnest. We were allstartled by the transformation, as if a man had risen from the dead.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "I am afraid I have not been paying muchattention to your talk. Who is this Wolfe Macfarlane?" And then, when hehad heard the landlord out, "It cannot be, it cannot be," he added; "andyet I would like well to see him face to face."
"Do you know him, Doctor?" asked the undertaker, with a gasp.
"God forbid!" was the reply. "And yet the name is a strange one; it weretoo much to fancy two. Tell me, landlord, is he old?"
"Well," said the host, "he's not a young man, to be sure, and his hairis white; but he looks younger than you."
"He is older, though; years older. But," with a slap upon the table,"it's the rum you see in my face--rum and sin. This man, perhaps, mayhave an easy conscience and a good digestion. Conscience! Hear mespeak. You would think I was some good, old, decent Christian, wouldyou not? But no, not I; I never canted. Voltaire might have canted ifhe'd stood in my shoes; but the brains"--with a rattling fillip on hisbald head--"the brains were clear and active, and I saw and made nodeductions."
"If you know this doctor," I ventured to remark, after a somewhat awfulpause, "I should gather that you do not share the landlord's goodopinion."
Fettes paid no regard to me.
"Yes," he said, with sudden decision, "I must see him face to face."
There was another pause, and then a door was closed rather sharply onthe first floor, and a step was heard upon the stair.
"That's the doctor," cried the landlord. "Look sharp, and you can catchhim."
It was but two steps from the small parlour to the door of the oldGeorge Inn; the wide oak staircase landed almost in the street; therewas room for a Turkey rug and nothing more between the threshold and thelast round of the descent; but this little space was every eveningbrilliantly lit up, not only by the light upon the stair and the greatsignal lamp below the sign, but by the warm radiance of the bar-roomwindow. The George thus brightly advertised itself to passers-by in thecold street. Fettes walked steadily to the spot, and we, who werehanging behind, beheld the two men meet, as one of them had phrased it,face to face. Dr. Macfarlane was alert and vigorous. His white hair setoff his pale and placid, although energetic, countenance. He was richlydressed in the finest of broadcloth and the whitest of linen, with agreat gold watch-chain, and studs and spectacles of the same preciousmaterial. He wore a broad-folded tie, white and speckled with lilac, andhe carried on his arm a comfortable driving-coat of fur. There was nodoubt but he became his years, breathing, as he did, of wealth andconsideration; and it was a surprising contrast to see our parloursot--bald, dirty, pimpled, and robed in his old camlet cloak--confronthim at the bottom of the stairs.
"Macfarlane!" he said somewhat loudly, more like a herald than a friend.
The great doctor pulled up short on the fourth step, as though thefamiliarity of the address surprised and somewhat shocked his dignity.
"Toddy Macfarlane!" repeated Fettes.
The London man almost staggered. He stared for the swiftest of secondsat the man before him, glanced behind him with a sort of scare, and thenin a startled whisper, "Fettes!" he said, "you!"
"Ay," said the other, "me! Did you think I was dead too? We are not soeasy shut of our acquaintance."
"Hush, hush!" exclaimed the doctor. "Hush, hush! this meeting is sounexpected--I can see you are unmanned. I hardly knew you, I confess, atfirst; but I am overjoyed--overjoyed to have this opportunity. For thepresent it must be how-d'ye-do and good-bye in one, for my fly iswaiting, and I must not fail the train; but you shall--let mesee--yes--you shall give me your address, and you can count on earlynews of me. We must do something for you, Fettes. I fear you are out atelbows; but we must see to that for auld lang syne, as once we sang atsuppers."
"Money!" cried Fettes; "money from you! The money that I had from you islying where I cast it in the rain."
Dr. Macfarlane had talked himself into some measure of superiority andconfidence, but the uncommon energy of this refusal cast him back intohis first confusion.
A horrible, ugly look came and went across his almost venerablecountenance. "My dear fellow," he said, "be it as you please; my lastthought is to offend you. I would intrude on none. I will leave you myaddress, however--"
"I do not wish it--I do not wish to know the roof that shelters you,"interrupted the other. "I heard your name; I feared it might be you; Iwished to know if, after all, there were a God; I know now that there isnone. Begone!"
He still stood in the middle of the rug, between the stair and doorway;and the great London physician, in order to escape, would be forced tostep to one side. It was plain that he hesitated before the thought ofthis humiliation. White as he was, there was a dangerous glitter in hisspectacles; but while he still paused uncertain, he became aware thatthe driver of his fly was peering in from the street at this unusualscene and caught a glimpse at the same time of our little body from theparlour, huddled by the corner of the bar. The presence of so manywitnesses decided him at once to flee. He crouched together, brushing onthe wainscot, and made a dart like a serpent, striking for the door. Buthis tribulation was not entirely at an end, for even as he was passingFettes clutched him by the arm and these words came in a whisper, andyet painfully distinct, "Have you seen it again?"
The great rich London doctor cried out aloud with a sharp, throttlingcry; he dashed his questioner across the open space, and, with his handsover his head, fled out of the door like a detected thief. Before it hadoccurred to one of us to make a movement the fly was already rattlingtoward the station. The scene was over like a dream
, but the dream hadleft proofs and traces of its passage. Next day the servant found thefine gold spectacles broken on the threshold, and that very night wewere all standing breathless by the bar-room window, and Fettes at ourside, sober, pale, and resolute in look.
"God protect us, Mr. Fettes!" said the landlord, coming first intopossession of his customary senses. "What in the universe is all this?These are strange things you have been saying."
Fettes turned toward us; he looked us each in succession in the face."See if you can hold your tongues," said he. "That man Macfarlane isnot safe to cross; those that have done so already have repented it toolate."
And then, without so much as finishing his third glass, far less waitingfor the other two, he bade us good-bye and went forth, under the lamp ofthe hotel, into the black night.
We three turned to our places in the parlour, with the big red fire andfour clear candles; and as we recapitulated what had passed, the firstchill of our surprise soon changed into a glow of curiosity. We satlate; it was the latest session I have known in the old George. Eachman, before we parted, had his theory that he was bound to prove; andnone of us had any nearer business in this world than to track out thepast of our condemned companion, and surprise the secret that he sharedwith the great London doctor. It is no great boast, but I believe I wasa better hand at worming out a story than either of my fellows at theGeorge; and perhaps there is now no other man alive who could narrate toyou the following foul and unnatural events.
In his young days Fettes studied medicine in the schools of Edinburgh.He had talent of a kind, the talent that picks up swiftly what it hearsand readily retails it for its own. He worked little at home; but he wascivil, attentive, and intelligent in the presence of his masters. Theysoon picked him out as a lad who listened closely and remembered well;nay, strange as it seemed to me when I first heard it, he was in thosedays well favoured, and pleased by his exterior. There was, at thatperiod, a certain extramural teacher of anatomy, whom I shall heredesignate by the letter K. His name was subsequently too well known. Theman who bore it skulked through the streets of Edinburgh in disguise,while the mob that applauded at the execution of Burke called loudly forthe blood of his employer. But Mr. K---- was then at the top of hisvogue; he enjoyed a popularity due partly to his own talent and address,partly to the incapacity of his rival, the university professor. Thestudents, at least, swore by his name, and Fettes believed himself, andwas believed by others, to have laid the foundations of success when heacquired the favour of this meteorically famous man. Mr. K---- was a_bon vivant_ as well as an accomplished teacher; he liked a sly illusionno less than a careful preparation. In both capacities Fettes enjoyedand deserved his notice, and by the second year of his attendance heheld the half-regular position of second demonstrator, or sub-assistantin his class.
In this capacity the charge of the theatre and lecture-room devolved inparticular upon his shoulders. He had to answer for the cleanliness ofthe premises and the conduct of the other students, and it was a part ofhis duty to supply, receive, and divide the various subjects. It waswith a view to this last--at that time very delicate--affair that he waslodged by Mr. K---- in the same wynd, and at last in the same building,with the dissecting-rooms. Here, after a night of turbulent pleasures,his hand still tottering, his sight still misty and confused, he wouldbe called out of bed in the black hours before the winter dawn by theunclean and desperate interlopers who supplied the table. He would openthe door to these men, since infamous throughout the land. He would helpthem with their tragic burden, pay them their sordid price, and remainalone, when they were gone, with the unfriendly relics of humanity. Fromsuch a scene he would return to snatch another hour or two of slumber,to repair the abuses of the night, and refresh himself for the laboursof the day.
Few lads could have been more insensible to the impressions of a lifethus passed among the ensigns of mortality. His mind was closed againstall general considerations. He was incapable of interest in the fate andfortunes of another, the slave of his own desires and low ambitions.Cold, light, and selfish in the last resort, he had that modicum ofprudence, miscalled morality, which keeps a man from inconvenientdrunkenness or punishable theft. He coveted, besides, a measure ofconsideration from his masters and his fellow-pupils, and he had nodesire to fail conspicuously in the external parts of life. Thus he madeit his pleasure to gain some distinction in his studies, and day afterday rendered unimpeachable eye-service to his employer, Mr. K----. Forhis day of work he indemnified himself by nights of roaring,blackguardly enjoyment; and when that balance had been struck, the organthat he called his conscience declared itself content.
The supply of subjects was a continual trouble to him as well as to hismaster. In that large and busy class, the raw material of the anatomistkept perpetually running out; and the business thus rendered necessarywas not only unpleasant in itself, but threatened dangerous consequencesto all who were concerned. It was the policy of Mr. K---- to ask noquestions in his dealings with the trade. "They bring the body, and wepay the price," he used to say, dwelling on the alliteration--"_quid proquo_." And, again, and somewhat profanely, "Ask no questions," he wouldtell his assistants, "for conscience' sake." There was no understandingthat the subjects were provided by the crime of murder. Had that ideabeen broached to him in words, he would have recoiled in horror; but thelightness of his speech upon so grave a matter was, in itself, anoffence against good manners, and a temptation to the men with whom hedealt. Fettes, for instance, had often remarked to himself upon thesingular freshness of the bodies. He had been struck again and again bythe hangdog, abominable looks of the ruffians who came to him before thedawn; and putting things together clearly in his private thoughts, heperhaps attributed a meaning too immoral and too categorical to theunguarded counsels of his master. He understood his duty, in short, tohave three branches: to take what was brought, to pay the price, and toavert the eye from any evidence of crime.
One November morning this policy of silence was put sharply to the test.He had been awake all night with a racking toothache--pacing his roomlike a caged beast or throwing himself in fury on his bed--and hadfallen at last into that profound, uneasy slumber that so often followson a night of pain, when he was awakened by the third or fourth angryrepetition of the concerted signal. There was a thin, bright moonshine;it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town had not yet awakened,but an indefinable stir already preluded the noise and business of theday. The ghouls had come later than usual, and they seemed more thanusually eager to be gone. Fettes, sick with sleep, lighted themupstairs. He heard their grumbling Irish voices through a dream; and asthey stripped the sack from their sad merchandise he leaned dozing, withhis shoulder propped against the wall; he had to shake himself to findthe men their money. As he did so his eyes lighted on the dead face. Hestarted; he took two steps nearer, with the candle raised.
"God Almighty!" he cried. "That is Jane Galbraith!"
The men answered nothing, but they shuffled nearer the door.
"I know her, I tell you," he continued. "She was alive and heartyyesterday. It's impossible she can be dead; it's impossible you shouldhave got this body fairly."
"Sure, sir, you're mistaken entirely," said one of the men.
But the other looked Fettes darkly in the eyes, and demanded the moneyon the spot.
It was impossible to misconceive the threat or to exaggerate the danger.The lad's heart failed him. He stammered some excuses, counted out thesum, and saw his hateful visitors depart. No sooner were they gone thanhe hastened to confirm his doubts. By a dozen unquestionable marks heidentified the girl he had jested with the day before. He saw, withhorror, marks upon her body that might well betoken violence. A panicseized him, and he took refuge in his room. There he reflected atlength over the discovery that he had made; considered soberly thebearing of Mr. K----'s instructions and the danger to himself ofinterference in so serious a business, and at last, in sore perplexity,determined to wait for the advice of his immediate superior,
the classassistant.
This was a young doctor, Wolfe Macfarlane, a high favourite among allthe reckless students, clever, dissipated, and unscrupulous to the lastdegree. He had travelled and studied abroad. His manners were agreeableand a little forward. He was an authority on the stage, skilful on theice or the links with skate or golf-club; he dressed with nice audacity,and, to put the finishing touch upon his glory, he kept a gig and astrong trotting-horse. With Fettes he was on terms of intimacy; indeed,their relative positions called for some community of life; and whensubjects were scarce the pair would drive far into the country inMacfarlane's gig, visit and desecrate some lonely graveyard, and returnbefore dawn with their booty to the door of the dissecting-room.
On that particular morning Macfarlane arrived somewhat earlier than hiswont. Fettes heard him, and met him on the stairs, told him his story,and showed him the cause of his alarm, Macfarlane examined the marks onher body.
"Yes," he said, with a nod, "it looks fishy."
"Well, what should I do?" asked Fettes.
"Do?" repeated the other. "Do you want to do anything? Least saidsoonest mended, I should say."
"Some one else might recognise her," objected Fettes. "She was as wellknown as the Castle Rock."
"We'll hope not," said Macfarlane, "and if anybody does--well, youdidn't, don't you see, and there's an end. The fact is, this has beengoing on too long. Stir up the mud, and you'll get K---- into the mostunholy trouble; you'll be in a shocking box yourself. So will I, if youcome to that. I should like to know how any one of us would look, orwhat the devil we should have to say for ourselves, in any Christianwitness-box. For me, you know there's one thing certain--that,practically speaking, all our subjects have been murdered."
"Macfarlane!" cried Fettes.
"Come now!" sneered the other. "As if you hadn't suspected it yourself!"
"Suspecting is one thing----"
"And proof another. Yes, I know; and I'm as sorry as you are this shouldhave come here," tapping the body with his cane. "The next best thingfor me is not to recognise it; and," he added coolly, "I don't. You may,if you please. I don't dictate, but I think a man of the world would doas I do; and I may add, I fancy that is what K---- would look for at ourhands. The question is, Why did he choose us two for his assistants? AndI answer, Because he didn't want old wives."
This was the tone of all others to affect the mind of a lad like Fettes.He agreed to imitate Macfarlane. The body of the unfortunate girl wasduly dissected, and no one remarked or appeared to recognise her.
One afternoon, when his day's work was over, Fettes dropped into apopular tavern and found Macfarlane sitting with a stranger. This was asmall man, very pale and dark, with coal-black eyes. The cut of hisfeatures gave a promise of intellect and refinement which was but feeblyrealised in his manners, for he proved, upon a nearer acquaintance,coarse, vulgar, and stupid. He exercised, however, a very remarkablecontrol over Macfarlane; issued orders like the Great Bashaw; becameinflamed at the least discussion or delay, and commented rudely on theservility with which he was obeyed. This most offensive person took afancy to Fettes on the spot, plied him with drinks, and honoured himwith unusual confidences on his past career. If a tenth part of what heconfessed were true, he was a very loathsome rogue; and the lad'svanity was tickled by the attention of so experienced a man.
"I'm a pretty bad fellow myself," the stranger remarked, "but Macfarlaneis the boy--Toddy Macfarlane I call him. Toddy, order your friendanother glass." Or it might be, "Toddy, you jump up and shut the door.""Toddy hates me," he said again. "Oh, yes, Toddy, you do!"
"Don't you call me that confounded name," growled Macfarlane.
"Hear him! Did you ever see the lads play knife? He would like to dothat all over my body," remarked the stranger.
"We medicals have a better way than that," said Fettes. "When we dislikea dead friend of ours, we dissect him."
Macfarlane looked up sharply, as though this jest were scarcely to hismind.
The afternoon passed. Gray, for that was the stranger's name, invitedFettes to join them at dinner, ordered a feast so sumptuous that thetavern was thrown into commotion, and when all was done commandedMacfarlane to settle the bill. It was late before they separated; theman Gray was incapably drunk. Macfarlane, sobered by his fury, chewedthe cud of the money he had been forced to squander and the slights hehad been obliged to swallow. Fettes, with various liquors singing in hishead, returned home with devious footsteps and a mind entirely inabeyance. Next day Macfarlane was absent from the class, and Fettessmiled to himself as he imagined him still squiring the intolerable Grayfrom tavern to tavern. As soon as the hour of liberty had struck heposted from place to place in quest of his last night's companions. Hecould find them, however, nowhere; so returned early to his rooms, wentearly to bed, and slept the sleep of the just.
At four in the morning he was awakened by the well-known signal.Descending to the door, he was filled with astonishment to findMacfarlane with his gig, and in the gig one of those long and ghastlypackages with which he was so well acquainted.
"What?" he cried. "Have you been out alone? How did you manage?"
But Macfarlane silenced him roughly, bidding him turn to business. Whenthey had got the body upstairs and laid it on the table, Macfarlane madeat first as if he were going away. Then he paused and seemed tohesitate; and then, "You had better look at the face," said he, in tonesof some constraint. "You had better," he repeated, as Fettes only staredat him in wonder.
"But where, and how, and when did you come by it?" cried the other.
"Look at the face," was the only answer.
Fettes was staggered; strange doubts assailed him. He looked from theyoung doctor to the body, and then back again. At last, with a start, hedid as he was bidden. He had almost expected the sight that met hiseyes, and yet the shock was cruel. To see, fixed in the rigidity ofdeath and naked on that coarse layer of sackcloth, the man whom he hadleft well clad and full of meat and sin upon the threshold of a tavern,awoke, even in the thoughtless Fettes, some of the terrors of theconscience. It was a _cras tibi_ which re-echoed in his soul, that twowhom he had known should have come to lie upon these icy tables. Yetthese were only secondary thoughts. His first concern regarded Wolfe.Unprepared for a challenge so momentous, he knew not how to look hiscomrade in the face. He durst not meet his eye, and he had neither wordsnor voice at his command.
It was Macfarlane himself who made the first advance. He came up quietlybehind and laid his hand gently but firmly on the other's shoulder.
"Richardson," said he, "may have the head."
Now Richardson was a student who had long been anxious for that portionof the human subject to dissect. There was no answer, and the murdererresumed: "Talking of business, you must pay me; your accounts, you see,must tally."
Fettes found a voice, the ghost of his own: "Pay you!" he cried. "Payyou for that?"
"Why, yes, of course you must. By all means and on every possibleaccount, you must," returned the other. "I dare not give it for nothing,you dare not take it for nothing; it would compromise us both. This isanother case like Jane Galbraith's. The more things are wrong the morewe must act as if all were right. Where does old K---- keep his money?"
"There," answered Fettes hoarsely, pointing to a cupboard in the corner.
"Give me the key, then," said the other calmly, holding out his hand.
There was an instant's hesitation, and the die was cast. Macfarlanecould not suppress a nervous twitch, the infinitesimal mark of animmense relief, as he felt the key between his fingers. He opened thecupboard, brought out pen and ink and a paper-book that stood in onecompartment, and separated from the funds in a drawer a sum suitable tothe occasion.
"Now, look here," he said, "there is the payment made--first proof ofyour good faith: first step to your security. You have now to clinch itby a second. Enter the payment in your book, and then you for your partmay defy the devil."
The next few seconds were for Fettes an ago
ny of thought; but inbalancing his terrors it was the most immediate that triumphed. Anyfuture difficulty seemed almost welcome if he could avoid a presentquarrel with Macfarlane. He set down the candle which he had beencarrying all this time, and with a steady hand entered the date, thenature, and the amount of the transaction.
"And now," said Macfarlane, "it's only fair that you should pocket thelucre. I've had my share already. By-the-bye, when a man of the worldfalls into a bit of luck, has a few shillings extra in his pocket--I'mashamed to speak of it, but there's a rule of conduct in the case. Notreating, no purchase of expensive class-books, no squaring of olddebts; borrow, don't lend."
"Macfarlane," began Fettes, still somewhat hoarsely, "I have put my neckin a halter to oblige you."
"To oblige me?" cried Wolfe. "Oh, come! You did, as near as I can seethe matter, what you downright had to do in self-defence. Suppose I gotinto trouble, where would you be? This second little matter flowsclearly from the first. Mr. Gray is the continuation of Miss Galbraith.You can't begin and then stop. If you begin, you must keep on beginning;that's the truth. No rest for the wicked."
A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery of fate seized hold uponthe soul of the unhappy student.
"My God!" he cried, "but what have I done? and when did I begin? To bemade a class assistant--in the name of reason, where's the harm in that?Service wanted the position; Service might have got it. Would _he_ havebeen where _I_ am now!"
"My dear fellow," said Macfarlane, "what a boy you are! What harm _has_come to you? What harm _can_ come to you if you hold your tongue? Why,man, do you know what this life is? There are two squads of us--thelions and the lambs. If you're a lamb, you'll come to lie upon thesetables like Gray or Jane Galbraith; if you're a lion, you'll live anddrive a horse like me, like K----, like all the world with any wit orcourage. You're staggered at the first. But look at K----! My dearfellow, you're clever, you have pluck. I like you, and K---- likes you.You were born to lead the hunt; and I tell you, on my honour and myexperience of life, three days from now you'll laugh at all thesescarecrows like a High School boy at a farce."
And with that Macfarlane took his departure and drove off up the wyndin his gig to get under cover before daylight. Fettes was thus leftalone with his regrets. He saw the miserable peril in which he stoodinvolved. He saw, with inexpressible dismay, that there was no limit tohis weakness, and that, from concession to concession, he had fallenfrom the arbiter of Macfarlane's destiny to his paid and helplessaccomplice. He would have given the world to have been a little braverat the time, but it did not occur to him that he might still be brave.The secret of Jane Galbraith and the cursed entry in the day-book closedhis mouth.
Hours passed; the class began to arrive; the members of the unhappy Graywere dealt out to one and to another, and received without remark.Richardson was made happy with the head; and before the hour of freedomrang Fettes trembled with exultation to perceive how far they hadalready gone toward safety.
For two days he continued to watch, with increasing joy, the dreadfulprocess of disguise.
On the third day Macfarlane made his appearance. He had been ill, hesaid; but he made up for lost time by the energy with which he directedthe students. To Richardson in particular he extended the most valuableassistance and advice, and that student, encouraged by the praise of thedemonstrator, burned high with ambitious hopes, and saw the medalalready in his grasp.
Before the week was out Macfarlane's prophecy had been fulfilled. Fetteshad outlived his terrors and had forgotten his baseness. He began toplume himself upon his courage, and had so arranged the story in hismind that he could look back on these events with an unhealthy pride. Ofhis accomplice he saw but little. They met, of course, in the businessof the class; they received their orders together from Mr. K----. Attimes they had a word or two in private, and Macfarlane was from firstto last particularly kind and jovial. But it was plain that he avoidedany reference to their common secret; and even when Fettes whispered tohim that he had cast in his lot with the lions and forsworn the lambs,he only signed to him smilingly to hold his peace.
At length an occasion arose which threw the pair once more into a closerunion. Mr. K---- was again short of subjects; pupils were eager, and itwas a part of this teacher's pretensions to be always well supplied. Atthe same time there came the news of a burial in the rustic graveyard ofGlencorse. Time has little changed the place in question. It stood then,as now, upon a cross road, out of call of human habitations, and buriedfathom deep in the foliage of six cedar trees. The cries of the sheepupon the neighbouring hills, the streamlets upon either hand, one loudlysinging among pebbles, the other dripping furtively from pond to pond,the stir of the wind in mountainous old flowering chestnuts, and once inseven days the voice of the bell and the old tunes of the precentor,were the only sounds that disturbed the silence around the rural church.The Resurrection Man--to use a by-name of the period--was not to bedeterred by any of the sanctities of customary piety. It was part of histrade to despise and desecrate the scrolls and trumpets of old tombs,the paths worn by the feet of worshippers and mourners, and theofferings and the inscriptions of bereaved affection. To rusticneighbourhoods, where love is more than commonly tenacious, and wheresome bonds of blood or fellowship unite the entire society of a parish,the body-snatcher, far from being repelled by natural respect, wasattracted by the ease and safety of the task. To bodies that had beenlaid in earth, in joyful expectation of a far different awakening, therecame that hasty, lamp-lit, terror-haunted resurrection of the spade andmattock. The coffin was forced, the cerements torn, and the melancholyrelics, clad in sackcloth, after being rattled for hours on moonlessbyways, were at length exposed to uttermost indignities before a classof gaping boys.
Somewhat as two vultures may swoop upon a dying lamb, Fettes andMacfarlane were to be let loose upon a grave in that green and quietresting-place. The wife of a farmer, a woman who had lived for sixtyyears, and been known for nothing but good butter and a godlyconversation, was to be rooted from her grave at midnight and carried,dead and naked, to that far-away city that she had always honoured withher Sunday's best; the place beside her family was to be empty till thecrack of doom; her innocent and almost venerable members to be exposedto that last curiosity of the anatomist.
Late one afternoon the pair set forth, well wrapped in cloaks andfurnished with a formidable bottle. It rained without remission--a cold,dense, lashing rain. Now and again there blew a puff of wind, but thesesheets of falling water kept it down. Bottle and all, it was a sad andsilent drive as far as Penicuik, where they were to spend the evening.They stopped once, to hide their implements in a thick bush not far fromthe churchyard, and once again at the Fisher's Tryst, to have a toastbefore the kitchen fire and vary their nips of whisky with a glass ofale. When they reached their journey's end the gig was housed, the horsewas fed and comforted, and the two young doctors in a private room satdown to the best dinner and the best wine the house afforded. Thelights, the fire, the beating rain upon the window, the cold,incongruous work that lay before them, added zest to their enjoyment ofthe meal. With every glass their cordiality increased. Soon Macfarlanehanded a little pile of gold to his companion.
"A compliment," he said. "Between friends these little d----daccommodations ought to fly like pipe-lights."
Fettes pocketed the money, and applauded the sentiment to the echo. "Youare a philosopher," he cried. "I was an ass till I knew you. You andK---- between you, by the Lord Harry! but you'll make a man of me."
"Of course we shall," applauded Macfarlane. "A man? I tell you, itrequired a man to back me up the other morning. There are some big,brawling, forty-year-old cowards who would have turned sick at the lookof the d----d thing; but not you--you kept your head. I watched you."
"Well, and why not?" Fettes thus vaunted himself. "It was no affair ofmine. There was nothing to gain on the one side but disturbance, and onthe other I could count on your gratitude, don't you see?" And heslapped his pocket till the
gold pieces rang.
Macfarlane somehow felt a certain touch of alarm at these unpleasantwords. He may have regretted that he had taught his young companion sosuccessfully, but he had no time to interfere, for the other noisilycontinued in this boastful strain:--
"The great thing is not to be afraid. Now, between you and me, I don'twant to hang--that's practical; but for all cant, Macfarlane, I was bornwith a contempt. Hell, God, Devil, right, wrong, sin, crime, and all theold gallery of curiosities--they may frighten boys, but men of theworld, like you and me, despise them. Here's to the memory of Gray!"
It was by this time growing somewhat late. The gig, according to order,was brought round to the door with both lamps brightly shining, and theyoung men had to pay their bill and take the road. They announced thatthey were bound for Peebles, and drove in that direction till they wereclear of the last houses of the town; then, extinguishing the lamps,returned upon their course, and followed a by-road toward Glencorse.There was no sound but that of their own passage, and the incessant,strident pouring of the rain. It was pitch dark; here and there a whitegate or a white stone in the wall guided them for a short space acrossthe night; but for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almostgroping, that they picked their way through that resonant blackness totheir solemn and isolated destination. In the sunken woods that traversethe neighbourhood of the burying-ground the last glimmer failed them,and it became necessary to kindle a match and re-illumine one of thelanterns of the gig. Thus, under the dripping trees, and environed byhuge and moving shadows, they reached the scene of their unhallowedlabours.
They were both experienced in such affairs, and powerful with the spade;and they had scarce been twenty minutes at their task before they wererewarded by a dull rattle on the coffin lid. At the same moment,Macfarlane, having hurt his hand upon a stone, flung it carelessly abovehis head. The grave, in which they now stood almost to the shoulders,was close to the edge of the plateau of the graveyard; and the gig lamphad been propped, the better to illuminate their labours, against atree, and on the immediate verge of the steep bank descending to thestream. Chance had taken a sure aim with the stone. Then came a clang ofbroken glass; night fell upon them; sounds alternately dull and ringingannounced the bounding of the lantern down the bank, and its occasionalcollision with the trees. A stone or two, which it had dislodged in itsdescent, rattled behind it into the profundities of the glen; and thensilence, like night, resumed its sway; and they might bend their hearingto its utmost pitch, but naught was to be heard except the rain, nowmarching to the wind, now steadily falling over miles of open country.
They were so nearly at an end of their abhorred task that they judged itwisest to complete it in the dark. The coffin was exhumed and brokenopen; the body inserted in the dripping sack and carried between them tothe gig; one mounted to keep it in its place, and the other, taking thehorse by the mouth, groped along by wall and bush until they reached thewider road by the Fisher's Tryst. Here was a faint, diffused radiancy,which they hailed like daylight; by that they pushed the horse to a goodpace and began to rattle along merrily in the direction of the town.
They had both been wetted to the skin during their operations, and now,as the gig jumped among the deep ruts, the thing that stood proppedbetween them fell now upon one and now upon the other. At everyrepetition of the horrid contact each instinctively repelled it with thegreater haste; and the process, natural although it was, began to tellupon the nerves of the companions. Macfarlane made some ill-favouredjest about the farmer's wife, but it came hollowly from his lips, andwas allowed to drop in silence. Still their unnatural burden bumped fromside to side; and now the head would be laid, as if in confidence, upontheir shoulders, and now the drenching sackcloth would flap icily abouttheir faces. A creeping chill began to possess the soul of Fettes. Hepeered at the bundle, and it seemed somehow larger than at first. Allover the country-side, and from every degree of distance, the farm dogsaccompanied their passage with tragic ululations; and it grew and grewupon his mind that some unnatural miracle had been accomplished, thatsome nameless change had befallen the dead body, and that it was in fearof their unholy burden that the dogs were howling.
"For God's sake," said he, making a great effort to arrive at speech,"for God's sake, let's have a light!"
Seemingly Macfarlane was affected in the same direction; for, though hemade no reply, he stopped the horse, passed the reins to his companion,got down, and proceeded to kindle the remaining lamp. They had by thattime got no farther than the cross-road down to Auchenclinny. The rainstill poured as though the deluge were returning, and it was no easymatter to make a light in such a world of wet and darkness. When at lastthe flickering blue flame had been transferred to the wick and began toexpand and clarify, and shed a wide circle of misty brightness round thegig, it became possible for the two young men to see each other and thething they had along with them. The rain had moulded the rough sackingto the outlines of the body underneath; the head was distinct from thetrunk, the shoulders plainly modelled; something at once spectral andhuman riveted their eyes upon the ghastly comrade of their drive.
For some time Macfarlane stood motionless, holding up the lamp. Anameless dread was swathed, like a wet sheet, about the body, andtightened the white skin upon the face of Fettes; a fear that wasmeaningless, a horror of what could not be, kept mounting to his brain.Another beat of the watch, and he had spoken. But his comradeforestalled him.
"That is not a woman," said Macfarlane, in a hushed voice.
"It was a woman when we put her in," whispered Fettes.
"Hold that lamp," said the other. "I must see her face."
And as Fettes took the lamp his companion untied the fastenings of thesack and drew down the cover from the head. The light fell very clearupon the dark, well-moulded features and smooth-shaven cheeks of a toofamiliar countenance, often beheld in dreams of both of these young men.A wild yell rang up into the night; each leaped from his own side intothe roadway: the lamp fell, broke, and was extinguished; and the horse,terrified by this unusual commotion, bounded and went oft towardEdinburgh at a gallop, bearing along with it, sole occupant of the gig,the body of the dead and long-dissected Gray.
END OF VOL. III
PRINTED BY CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 3 Page 11