McLevy
Page 6
I had the pursuit, if such it may be termed, all to myself, but was immediately “called up” by one of those rock-ahead incidents which are so tantalising to our class,—no other than two roads, each holding out its recommendations to me, the one that the robbers would certainly take to the deep haunts of the Old Town, where the fox-burrows are so inviting and the difficulty of unearthing not easily surmounted; and the other, that they would seek the outskirts, and so get down to the valley between the Pleasance and Arthur Seat, where they might skulk in the deep darkness of the night, and so escape. A minute or two would turn the scale, and I must decide even almost as I ran. I have often quivered in this dilemma, and seldom been wrong in my choice; yet I can’t account for one out of ten of these instantaneous decisions. I really believe I have often been swayed by some very trivial incident, perhaps the shuffle of a foot, perhaps a gust of wind not heard as such, but simply as something working upon the ear. The barking of a dog has resolved me, the shutting of a door, or even a greater silence in one direction than another,—nay, to be very plain, and perhaps weak, I have sometimes thought I was led by a superior hand, so directly have I been taken to my quarry. It was so now. It was just as likely the fellows would go north to the Old Town, or south to the Gibbet Toll,—no gibbet now to scare them. I turned to the left down the Pleasance; even as I ran, and about halfway between my turn and Mr Ritchie’s brewery, I met one of our men on his beat, coming south, pacing as quietly as if no robbery could have been suspected in his well-watched quarter.
“Met two fellows in a skulk or a run?”
“No one; but before I crossed the foot of Drummond Street, I thought I heard the sound of quick feet, but it stopped in an instant, and I then thought I might have been mistaken.”
“Then stand you there as steady as a post, but not as deaf. Keep your feet steady, and your ears open.”
I had got just a sniff, and it is not often I have needed more. They had, no doubt, gone that way, and, on observing the officer, had gone into a burrow. I stood for an instant,—no common-stairs here, no closes, no cul-de-sac, no hole even for the shrinking body of a robber. The first glance brought me near my wit’s end, but not altogether. I have always been led on by small glimpses of Hope’s lamp till I got nearer and nearer her temple, and never yet gave up till all was dark. I stepped to the other side of the street, where there are some bad houses. No door open, every window shut, and no light within that could be observed. I could walk with the lightest of feet, and proceeded noiselessly along the narrow pavement till I came to Drummond Street, where there is the recess in which the well stands. I had no hope from that recess because it is comparatively open, and, dark as the night was, they could scarcely have skulked there without the man on the beat seeing them. Yet I was satisfied also that they could not have gone up by Drummond Street. I may mention that I could hear when almost every other person could discover nothing but silence; nay, this quickness of the hearing sense has often been a pain to me, for the tirl of a mouse has often put me off my rest when I stood in great need of it. I require to say nothing of my other poor senses here; they were not needed, for there was nothing to be seen except below the straggling lamps, in the pale light of one of which I saw my man standing sentry, but nothing more.
Expecting nothing from the recess, I crossed to the angle, rather disappointed, and was rather meditative than listening, foiled than hopeful, when my ear was arrested by one or two deep breathings,—scared robbers are great breathers, especially after a tussle with a victim. I could almost tell the kind of play of lungs; it speaks fear, for there is an attempt to repress the sound, and yet nature here cannot be overcome. On the instant I felt sure of my prey, yet I tested my evidence even deliberately. There was more than one play of lungs at work—I could trace two,—and all their efforts, for they had seen the man pass, and had probably heard our conversation, were not able to overcome the proof that was rushing out of their noses, (as if this organ could give out evidence as well as take it in,) not their mouths,—fear shuts the latter, if wonder should open it,—to reach my ear, just as if some great power adopted this mode of showing man that there is a speaking silence that betrays the breakers of God’s laws. Now certain I hastened over to the man on the beat, and, whispering to him to go to the station for another man, took my watch again. I knew I had them in my power, because if they took themselves to flight, I could beat them at that trick; so I cooled myself down to patience, and kept my place without moving an inch, quite contented so long as I heard the still half-suppressed respirations.
In a few minutes my men were up, coming rather roughly for such fine work. I took each by the coat-neck,—
“Steady, and not a whisper! They are round the corner,—batons ready, and a rush.”
By a combined movement, we all wheeled round the angle, and before another breath could force itself, we had the two chevaliers in our hands,—even as they were standing, bolt upright against the gable of the house that forms one side of the recess. Like all the rest of their craft they were quite innocent, only their oaths—for they were a pair of desperate thimblers, whom I knew at once—might have been sufficient to have modified the effects of their protestations. They were, indeed, dangerous men. They had nearly throttled M’—ie, and in revenge for getting nothing off him had threatened to murder him. My next object was to get them identified by the people who had raised the cry, for if they had dispersed we might have been—with nothing on them belonging to the man—in want of evidence, though not in want of a justification, of our capture of two well-known personages. Fortunately, when we got to the station some of the women were there who identified them on the instant, whereupon they became, as sometimes the very worst of them do, “gentle lambs”, and were led very quietly to their destination in the High Street. Remitted to the Sheriff, their doom was fourteen years.
“And the breath of their nostrils shall find them out.”
The Child-Strippers
❖
How different are the estimates people form of mankind! Some say that the world is just very much as you take it—the old notion that truth is just as you think it. If you wear a rough glove, you may think all those you shake hands with are rough in the palms; and if you wear a soft one, so in the other way; and no doubt if you grin in a glass, you will get a grin in return—if you smile, you will be repaid with a smile. All very well this in the clever way; but I’ve a notion that there are depths of depravity not to be gauged in this short plumb way, just as there are heights of perfection not to be got at by our own estimates of ourselves. As for the general “top-to-toe rottenness” so congenial to some religious sects, why there’s a little truth there too—at least I would look sharp at a man who could turn his eye in and about his own heart, and just say, with a nice smirk, “Well, I am glad to find that man is an angel after all.” It is as well for me anyhow that I am not given to making a kaleidoscope of my heart, turning up only varieties of beauty, without considering that a few hard pebbles form the elements of the fine display, otherwise how could I have had any belief in the existence of such beings as Kate Lang and Nell Duff. I would as readily have believed in M. Chaillu’s account of the Gorillas; only these optimist gentry do admit, with a smile of satisfaction, that a hungry tiger is not to be trusted with a live infant—no more is Kate Lang, say I.
The practice of child-stripping, which is not so common now, is one of those depths of depravity to which I have alluded. It is not that there is so much cruelty done. It forms a fine subject for very tender people who wail about the poor innocents left shivering in their shirts. But there is more fancy than fact here; they don’t shiver long in a crowded city; nay, the stripping is sometimes productive of good, in so much as the neighbours contrive to get the victim pretty well supplied with even better clothes than those stolen. There is more sympathy due to the case which happens sometimes where a heartless thief makes off with the clothes, shirt and all, of a bather, about the solitary parts of Granton; for here th
e situation of the victim is really terrible. To run after the thief is nearly out of the question as regards success, even if he could make up his mind to a chase in his very natural condition; nor is his remaining remedy much better—a walk so unlike that of Adam through Paradise to the nearest house, a mile off, where he must knock at a door, drive away the opener with a scream, bolt like a robber into a bed-room, and get a walk home in a suit of clothes in which his friends cannot recognise him. Our feelings depend often upon such strange turns of thought, that a case of this latter kind, so replete with even agony, can scarcely be told without something like a smile working among the gravely-disposed muscles of the face of the hearer; while that of the child, almost always left its skin linen, is viewed with indignation and pity. I cannot explain this difference; but it is not difficult to see how, independently of the rather exaggerated notions we entertain of the condition of the victim, the crime of child-stripping should be visited with the execration it generally meets.
In 1838, and thereabouts, this offence of child-stripping increased to an extent which roused the fears of mothers. The depredators were of course women. My only doubts were, whether there were more than one; for, as I have taken occasion to remark, all such peculiar and out of the way offences are generally the work of some one ingenious artiste; and if more are concerned, they are only parties to a league in which the inventor is the leader. I confess I was more inclined to believe in the single performer, but I was destined in this instance to find myself wrong. I was at least determined to get at the bottom of the mystery, and it wasn’t long until I was gratified. In the month of May of the year mentioned, the cases had accumulated, and as yet my inquiries had been unsuccessful. In the New Town the cases had been limited to the narrow streets, and latterly they had increased about the foot of the Canongate. In that quarter, accordingly, I found it necessary to be, though not very expedient to be seen, and I soon got upon my proper scent. One day I observed coming from the Watergate three or four women, all of the lowest section of Conglomerates—not altogether a perfectly applicable name here, in so much as my “clear grits” were not rounded by healthy washings, but sharpened by the abrasion of vice and misery. They were busy tying up a bundle, and after indulging in many stealthy looks to the right and left, they made forward up the Canongate. I might safely have stopped them and made inquiry into the contents of their bundle, but I had something else in view, and was content with noting them, all known to me as they were—cast-off Fancies, not genteel enough for being leagued with respectable thieves, and yet below the summer heat of love—trulls or trollops—trogganmongers during day, and troglodytes during night.
I have said I had hopes, and accordingly I had scarcely lost sight of them when I encountered, a little on this side of the Abbey strand, a small Cupid of a fellow standing in the middle of the street, (he had crept from a stair foot,) having a little bit of a shirt on him coming down to his knees, and crying lustily with beslubbered face.
That’s my robbed traveller, said I to myself, as I made up to the young sufferer who had so early fallen among thieves.
And just at the same time as the wondering women of the Watergate were pouring in to see the interesting personage, up comes the mother, who (as I afterwards learned) having sent out Johnny for a loaf of bread, and finding he didn’t return, issued forth to seek for him. One may guess her astonishment at meeting him within so short a time, probably not ten minutes, in a state approaching to nudity, but the guess would hardly come up to the real thing. The notion of his having been robbed and stripped didn’t occur to her, and her amazement did not abate until I told her the truth, whereupon the women—like so many hens whose chickens had been seized by a hawk—broke into a scream of execration which excited the wit of an Irishman, “Have the vagabonds taken the watch from the gintleman? Why didn’t they take the shirt too, and make a naked shaim ov it?” And having taken the name of the mother, I made after my strippers.
Nor was it long until I got them again within my vision. It seemed to be a feasting-day with the ogresses. They met and parted, every one looking out for some little Red Riding-hood, who was doubtless unconscious of the tender mercies of the she-wolves. The league consisted of five, all of whom had been through my hands for thefts and robberies—Catharine Lang, Helen Duff, Mary Joice, Margaret Joice, and Robina Finnie. If you have ever been among the wynds, you can form an idea of these hags; if you haven’t, you must excuse me—squalor-painting is at best a mud-daub. Amongst all, mark this strange feature—that though some of them had been mothers, the mother was here inverted, the natural feelings turned upside down; the innocent creatures for whom some stray sympathy might have been expected, changed into objects of rapine and cruelty for the sake of a few rags. I soon not only marked their movements, but saw that an opportunity waited them—for where in the Old Town will you not find clots of children? and are not these, when engaged in play, artless and confiding? Who, however degraded, will harm them? Nay, if there is any creature secure from the drunkard, the libertine, or the thief, it is the merry playmates of the pavement, whose gambols bring back to the seared heart of the vicious the happiness and innocence they have so long been strangers to. Yes, all true, though a little poetical; but I suspect there is a depth even below vice.
The wolves’ eyes were, as I could see, on the merry Red Riding-hoods; and as their number was five, I beckoned to a constable to get one or two of his brethren and watch in the neighbouring close-mouths. As for myself, I betook me to a stair-foot at the top of New Street, where, besides the advantage of a look-out, I had the chance, according to my calculation, of being on the very spot of the expected operation, for there were but few convenient places about. The women were so intent upon their victims, that they seemed to have forgotten that while they were supervising they might themselves be supervised. Nor was it long before I began to see that my expectations would be realised. Lang had almost immediately the best dressed of the gambolers in her motherly hand, and the bit of sugar-candy was working its charm; so true it is that there is awaiting every one a bait at the end of the standing line, stretched out in the waters of life, about which we are always swimming and flapping our tails, passing and repassing without ever dreaming of the hook. Ay, there are big fish intent upon large enterprises among the deeper places, who will snap at the dead worm even in the midst of living gold-fish. And is it not a pleasure sometimes to see them caught by the garbage when one can net the angler as well as the angled? My moral applies not to the gudgeons, but the pikes.
Yes, I was right; Lang, with the girl in her hand, and followed by Duff and one of the Joices, made right for my entry. I stepped up the stair a few paces to be out of the way. I wanted for ardent reasons that the operation should be as complete as possible, for the cancer had become too deep for any good from mere skin-cutting. The moment they got the confiding soul in, who no doubt thought herself in hands far more kindly than her mother’s, the sugar-candy of temptation was changed for the aloes of force. The three, stimulated by the fear of some one coming in upon them, either from below or above, flew at her like hawks pouncing upon a gowdie. Did ever before the fingers of ogresses go with such rapidity to strip the clothes that they might gobble up the body? The little mouth, still stuffed with the sweet bait, was taken care of by a rough hand. The plucking was the work of an instant—bonnet, pinny, napkin, frock, petticoats, boots and stockings.
“It’s a good shurt, Kate.”
“Worth a shilling, Nell.”
“Off wid it,” cried Joice.
The little chemise is whirled over the head, and the minum “nude” is left roaring alone—a chance living lay figure, which would have charmed even Lord Haddo, if he had a palette and brush, with its exquisite natural tints.
If I had had time to wait and see, I might have observed a bit of child life also worthy of a Paton or a Faed; for just as I was hurrying down, in came rushing the playmates, all with wondering eyes to see Phemy (I ascertained her name afterwards) stan
ding naked within a few minutes after she had left their play. Do you think they would ever forget that sight all their born days? But I had another sight in view more interesting to me—even one in wolf-life, with some difference in expression and tints—the grandmammas with the canines and long claws, so formidable to the Riding-hoods. Nor was I disappointed. I had set my trap so well that I had no need of the candy-bait. The instant the constables had seen what was going on, they had laid hold of the other Joice and Robina Finnie, and the three who had been engaged, having seen their dear sisters in custody, turned down New Street, up which they had gone a few steps, and were seized by me and another constable from behind. Meanwhile the cries of the little nude, mixed with those of her tiny sisterhood, brought a crowd, who, instantly ascertaining the cause of all the uproar, showered their indignation on the culprits with a severity that excluded even Irish humour. Nay, so furious were the hen-mothers, that unless we had taken good care of our sparrow-hawks, there would that day have been more stript than Phemy and her brother-victim of the Watergate; nor would I have answered for discolorations or broken bones. But care was also taken of the tender chicken, who, rolled up in a shawl, became in the midst of the crowd a little heroine, honoured with more endearing epithets and sympathetic condolences than would perhaps ever fall to her portion again.