by James McLevy
“‘Laugh at me!’ I cried, in my roused wrath, yet I had borne ten times more from my old friend; ‘laugh at me, you villain!’
“Then James’s face grew dark—I watched it, it was the very face of my dream. The drink deceived me, no doubt, but I was certain of what I saw. I observed him move, as if he wanted the knife. Oh, terrible delusion! I believe the good soul had no such intention; but I was carried away by some mysterious agency. I thought I was called upon to defend myself against murder; I grasped the knife, and in an instant plunged it into his belly, and as I drew out the weapon, the blood gushed forth like a well. ‘Oh, Willie!’ he cried, and fell at my feet.
“I immediately roared for help, and in ran my wife, followed by neighbours. With the knife in my hand, I rushed out, and fell into your arms. Now, can you read this story, and tell me the meaning of it? I have already said I am not mad; but why was I led by a dream to stab my friend? Is there any meaning in my conduct as directed by Providence?”
“I just fear, William,” said I, “from what I observed in you that morning when you told me your dream, that you had been drinking too much whisky, which, fevering and distempering your mind, produced not only the dream, but the subsequent notion that poor James was intent upon killing you. You will now see the consequence of drink. One may trace the effects of it for a time, but when, after a certain period, it begins to work changes in the tormented and worried brain, no man can calculate the results, or the crimes to which it may lead.”
“I believe you are right,” replied he; “and if James would just recover, he would be dearer to me than ever, and whisky no longer a deceitful friend; but, ah! I fear. And then how am I to pass this night in a dark cell, with no one near me, and the vision of that bleeding body before my eyes aye, and those words sounding in my ear, which torture and wring my heart more than a thousand oaths—those simple words, ‘Oh, Willie!’ ”
“You must trust where trust can find a bottom,” said I; “perhaps Imrie may live and recover.”
“God grant!” groaned the prisoner.
And with a sorrowful heart, I turned the key in the lock.
Next day, it was ascertained that Imrie had passed a night of extreme suffering, and then died. This information I conveyed to Wright. It was needless to try modes of breaking it to him. His fear made him leap at it as one under frenzy will leap down a precipice. I had no nerve for what I have no doubt followed, and hurried out just as he had thrown himself on his hard bed, and I heard his cries ringing behind the door as I again closed it.
Wright was brought to trial on a charge of wilful murder, with a minor charge of culpable homicide. It was a stretch to choose the latter; but the men were known to be friends, and as no one witnessed the catastrophe, the milder construction was put upon an act which, after all, I suspect was simply one of temporary madness. I doubt if all the strange particulars were ever known. Wright was sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude. I have often thought of this case, but never diverged from the theory I mentioned to Wright himself. It does not affect my opinion of dreams. The two friends had been in the habit of getting into tilts, the result of their drinking. The dream was only an impression caused by some angry look forced out of the simple victim. The fever of the brain gave it consistency, and deepened it, and under the apprehension that he himself was to be stabbed, he stabbed his friend. This is the only dream-case in my book; and I’m not sorry for it, otherwise I might have glided into the supernatural, as others have done who have had more education than I, and are better able to separate the world of dreams from the stern world of realities.
The Cock and Trumpet
❖
There are certain duties we perform of which we are scarcely aware, and which consist in a species of strolling supervision among houses, which, though not devoted to resetting, are often yet receptacles of stolen goods, through a mean of the residence there of women of the lowest stratum of vice and profligacy. Though we have no charge against the house at the time, and no suspicion that it contains stolen property, we claim the privilege of going through it on the ostensible pretence that we have in view a particular object of recovery. I have generally, I think, been fonder of these pleasant strolls than my brethren, perhaps for the reason that on some occasions I have been fortunate in what may be called chance waifs. Among these there was at the period I allude to, a well-known house, known as the Cock and Trumpet, for the reason that a bantam was represented on the sign as blowing the clarion of war in the shape of a huge French horn—significant no doubt of the crowing of the Gallic cockerel. It was a favourite of mine—the more by token that I had several times brought off rather wonderful things. On one occasion I issued triumphantly with a Dunlop cheese weighing thirty pounds, on another with a dozen of Italian sausages, and on another with two live geese.
It was a feature of the portly landlady that she never knew (not she) that such things were in the house. “Some of thae rattling deevils o’ hizzies had done it. The glaikit limmers, will they no be content wi’ their ain game, but maun turn common thieves?” Then her surprise was just as like the real astonishment as veritable wonder itself. “And got ye that in my house, Mr M’Levy? Whaur in a’ the earth did it come frae? and wha brought it to the Cock and Trumpet? I wish I kent the gillet.”
But the sound of her trumpet was changed one morning after she had taken to herself a certain Mr Alexander Dewar to be lord of her, her establishment, and the crowing bantam. Sandy, who was himself a great thief, had thus risen in the sliding scale. It is not often that thieves rise to be the head of an establishment with a dozen of beds, though without even a fir table by way of ordinary; but so true is the title of my book, that Sandy’s slide upwards was just the cause of a return downwards with accelerated velocity.
One morning I happened to be earlier on my rounds than usual, and though houses like the Cock and Trumpet do their business during night, and are therefore late openers, I found the door open.
Something more than ordinary, I said to myself. The bantam must have been roused by some cock that has seen the morning’s light sooner than it reaches the deep recesses of that wynd.
And going straight in, and passing through a room of sleeping beauties reposing blissfully amidst a chorus of snorts, I came to the bed-room of the new master himself. The mistress was enjoying in bed the repose due to her midnight and morning labours, snoring as deep as a woman of her size and suction could do, and beside her, in a chair, sat Sandy himself plucking lustily at fowls. He had finished nine hens, and was busy with the last of nine ducks. No wonder that the bantam had crown so early.
“What a fine show of poultry, Sandy, man,” said I. “Where got you so many hens and ducks?”
“A man has surely a right to what comes into his ain trap,” replied the rogue, as unmoved as one of the dead hens. “They flew in at the window.”
And he proceeded with his operation of plucking.
My voice had in the meantime awakened his helpmate.
“Whaur can the hens hae come frae?” snorted the jolly woman. “Some o’ the hizzies, nae doot.”
“No, mistress,” said I; “they flew in at the window.”
“Weel, maybe they did.”
“Just in the way the Bologna sausages did,” said I.
“Na, it was the jade Bess Brown did that job, but I’m an innocent woman. Was I no sleeping when ye cam in? Does a sleeping woman catch hens in her sleep as she does flees in her mooth?”
“Well,” said I, turning to Sandy, “you’re the man.”
“The Lord’s will be dune,” said the wife, in a tone quite at variance with her old system of asserting her innocence, (Sandy, her “husband”, being bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh). “If Sandy has disgraced the house I made him master o’, ay, and a gentleman to boot, he maun just dree the dregs.”
Nor was I much surprised at this turn, for I had heard that she was losing conceit of Sandy, and had been repenting that she had raised him to the rank of a g
entleman as well as lord of the Cock and Trumpet. Here was a good opportunity for getting quit of him, and the shrewd Jezebel saw her advantage.
“Now, Sandy,” said I again to the cool rogue, still occupied with his work, and who had now arrived at the head feathers of the last duck, which head feathers (though generally left by poultry pluckers) I observed he had carefully taken from every victim: “lay down the duck and get a pillow-slip.”
“Here’s ane,” cried his wife on the instant, as she began to undo the strings of her head cushion, ay, even that which had been frequently pressed by the head of her lord. “There,” she added, as she threw the article out of the bed.
“Put these feathers into that bag,” said I; “every feather, and I’ll wait till I see the last put in.”
“Ye’ll find that a kittle job, Mr M’Levy. A fleeing feather’s no easily catched.”
“Weel,” said Sandy, as he threw a wrathful glance at the mistress of his affection, now about to be lost to him, a loss of fifteen stones of solid beef—“I’ll do your bidding,” and then relaxing into a chuckle—“but will you tell me hoo the devil ony judge or jury can tell, after a’ these feathers are mixed, which belongs to a duke, and which to a hen, and which to ae duke, and no to anither, and which to ae hen, and no to its neeghbour; and then after a’ that, to whom the hens or the dukes belang? Ye see there’s no a head feather left.”
I saw in a moment that the cunning rogue had caught me, and that I might be in for an official scrape. But I had gone too far to recede, and I had got out of as great a difficulty before. “Put in the feathers quick,” said I.
“The lasses will help him,” cried the landlady, still bent on favouring the apprehension of Sandy; and quickly a husky voice sounded through the house, reaching, as it was intended, the hall of the sleeping beauties—“Kate Semple, Jessie Lumsdaine, Flora Macdonald.”
And straightway came rushing from their beds two or three of her “children”, as she used to call them. I need not describe the condition they were in, nor their swollen, sleepless eyes, their dishevelled hair, and their wondering looks, as they found their dreams probably changed from a place where there was roasting to a place of plucking.
“Help Sandy to put thae feathers in that pillow-slip, for the deil ane o’ them will remain to tak’ away the credit o’ my house.”
And thereupon the girls began the work, sprawling on their hands and knees, and putting in handful by handful as Sandy held open the mouth of the slip. The job was a difficult one, and the scene sufficiently picturesque to occupy my attention, diverted as it sometimes was by my anticipated difficulty in identifying the corpses; nor was it without a brush that they could accomplish the entire clearance I insisted on. Even the flying feathers I urged my nymphs to secure, an operation which they undertook with agility, screaming and laughing in the midst of their work with all that wild levity and recklessness for which their tribe is remarkable.
“Here,” cried Mrs Dewar, “there’s some on my bed.” And commencing to pick them up, “Nae man shall say that a stown feather was left in my house.”
A degree of refinement in this honest woman’s purity which produced a smile from me, in spite of the difficulties of a case of evidence which promised me some trouble. Nor were my fears unreasonable. Our honour is at stake in such matters, and then we require to keep in view that while little good may result from punishing so determined and hardened a rogue as Sandy Dewar, the evil consequences of an acquittal are serious. It emboldens the culprit himself, and affords a triumph to the whole fraternity.
“And now, Sandy,” said I, when there was scarcely a feather to be seen, “you’ll bind all the legs of the corpses together.”
A command which was obeyed slowly and reluctantly.
“Throw them over your back,” continued I, “and the bag will go over all.”
Having got my man laden with his dead spoil, “And now we’ll march to the Office,” said I.
“And fareweel, Sandy,” cried a voice from the bed; “we’ll maybe never see ane anither again. May the Lord prosper ye and mend ye!”
And finding matters in this favourable state, as I conceived, I bent my head over the lump of innocence:—
“Now, Mrs Dewar,” whispered I, “just tell me how Sandy came by the ducks and hens.”
“Aweel,” said she in return, disappointing my hopes of an admission, “I’ll say naething against my lawfu’ husband. If the dukes and hens didna flee in at the window, it’s now dead certain they’ll no flee oot at the door.”
These were the last words of the sonsy landlady, and I marched Sandy, with his burden, through an admiring crowd to the Office, where, having locked him up, I began to examine the dead bodies. The heads, as I have said, had been all taken care of, not a feather left upon one of them. Every corpse was so provokingly like another, that I could see no way of proving that they belonged to any one; and if, as was likely, Sandy had not been observed by any person about the place, I had no evidence to rest on but the equivocal words of Mrs Dewar, which pointed out no proprietor. I was in difficulty, but my difficulty was a stimulant as well; and there in the Office I sat, I know not how long, making my post mortem examination with all the assiduity of a doctor. My honour was concerned. The bantam would crow if my hens were not identified; but oh the inestimable virtue of perseverance! Were I to recount what this power has yielded me, I would read a lesson to the sluggard better than any imparted by Solomon. I had made my discoveries, and was the more satisfied with the result, as, during all the time I had been engaged in the examination of my eighteen dead bodies, I had become the theme of much good-humoured laughter among my compeers, joined in by the Superintendent and Lieutenant themselves.
A short time afterwards, there came in a charge from Mr Beaton, Hope Park, Meadows, to the effect that nine ducks had been stolen from his premises on the previous night; and after the lapse of another hour, a second charge, involving the nine hens, came from Mr Renton of Hope Park End. To these places I repaired, and saw the servants, who could, of course, have had no difficulty about the identity of their favourites, fed and tended by them every morning, and relieved by them of the succulent treasure they dropt so industriously for the morning’s meal, provided the feathers remained, but they all laughed at the idea of knowing their lamented favourites with bare bodies. As to the thief, no one could say that he was seen, or even heard. Sandy had done his work well. I then got the lasses to dress themselves, and accompany me to the Office, where we soon arrived; the bodies were all lying in the state in which I left them. The sight to the girls was nothing less than striking. They held up their hands, and really looked pitiful, for no doubt they had had an affection for the creatures; and the strongest of us, I suspect, have some feelings thus lowly, but not the less sympathetically directed, which even the savoury morsel of a fed favourite cannot altogether dissipate. My pig is a better pig than yours; but I’d rather eat yours, if you will eat mine.
So the girls turned over and over the bodies, examining them with all the minuteness in their power. Jenny declared it impossible, and Helen was in despair; Peggy thought she observed something, and Barbara declared it to be nothing. I watched them with some amusement, nor less the men in the Office. They stood around us laughing heartily at the remarks of the investigators, running up a joke to a climax, and then pursuing another, not always at the sole expense of the lasses, who could retort cleverly, impeaching their mockers as utterly unable to distinguish a male from a female fowl. At the long run, a happy thought struck Jenny.
“But where’s the ‘pensioner?’ ” cried she.
“Ay, the ‘pensioner,’ ” responded her neighbour Nelly.
“Had he a spliced leg?” inquired I.
“Yes,” replied the first, “a dog broke it, and Nelly and I bound it up with two thin pieces of wood and a string.”
“Ay, and he got aye the best handful of barley,” rejoined Nelly; “but the leg of the ‘pensioner’ was cured a month ago, and the ban
dage removed.”
“Is that the ‘pensioner’?” said I, as I showed the leg of one which I had observed in the forenoon as having on it the appearance of a healed-up sore.
“Ay, just the creature,” they both exclaimed. “It was the right leg, and you’ll see yet the marks of the string.”
The discovery was followed by the merriment of the men, who asserted that some one or other of the girls must have had a pensioner for a lover, with the designation of whom the drake had been honoured; but the girls indignantly denied the charge, declaring that they could not fancy a man pensioner, however much they might love a drake one.
“Besides,” added Jenny, cleverly, “he was our pensioner, not the Queen’s.”
“So much for the ducks,” said I; “and now for the hens and cocks; was there no pensioner among them?”
“No,” cried Barbara, “but there was the ‘corporal’.”
“Any mark beyond the coat?” inquired I.
“Ay,” cried Peggy, “he was stone-blind in the right eye; he lost his sight in a battle with Mr Grant’s cock, and never recovered his eyesight again. When toying with his wives, he turned aye round to the left side.”
“Yes,” struck in Betty; “before his misfortune, he was the king of a’ the cocks in the Meadows.”
“Is that the blind ‘corporal’?” said I.
“The very creature,” cried Barbara, as she examined the white orb of the animal which I had detected in the morning; “but oh,” she added, “I am vexed to see him in that condition!”
And really I thought I could see some little humidity about the blue eye of the good-natured girl.