The Court of Cacus Part 6

There is no great wonder that thinking people, while admitting ruling motives of action, should be chary about the question of their origin; how one rises out of another, and that out of one further removed, and so forth, as deep down as you please. The harlequin jackets may be removed one after another, till you come to the skin, which, being white, is said to be of no colour, only a negative, as also has been said of black. In another view, the subject appears still more unfruitful; for, as you may bring a tune, combining the grave and the gay, out of one length of catgut, so the human mind will give you off all sorts of feelings, some good and some bad, in the course of the same hour. In truth, as our doings are made up of pa.s.sions and restraints, which latter may be pa.s.sions as well, we will never understand thoroughly a human action. When we admit that these great criminals took away lives, right and left, for the sake of money, how much do we achieve? We just accuse them of what the Greeks called _chrysomania_, or madness for gold. Strange that in our country, where the pa.s.sion is pretty strong, we have no such name, avarice being entirely different; but this pa.s.sion may have been a rider on the love of drink, and then we cannot estimate either the one or the other, till we know the force of the countervailing restraints. If these--and there are many--are weak or _nil_, the pa.s.sion may be a very weak affair, so that such beings as our princ.i.p.al actors might--seeing they wanted pity and religion and fear--have thought less of suffocating a fellow-creature than Bellarmine did of removing a fly from his face. With no pretension to be teachers, we offer these hints merely as explanatory of our manner of treating a subject much discussed at the time.

Of one thing, however, we may be certain, and that is, the effect of familiarity in removing those inconvenient asperities called scruples, which nature is continually casting up to preserve the triumph of the good over the evil; and so we may well be satisfied that every succeeding success operated with the double effect of confirming the prior purpose and stimulating to a repet.i.tion. This is merely the confidence inspired by habit, with which we are all daily cognisant; and therefore the subsequent atrocities ought really to excite less curiosity, though not less revulsion, than those that went before. Yet this is not found to be the case, and the reason is, that even great men in the murdering way are generally content with one trial, as being sufficient for all their power to carry before the judgment-seat of G.o.d.

It is always to be remembered that all these moral wonders took place in very quick succession, and only a few weeks pa.s.s until we arrive at the waifs. The actors had come to see that they had a great stage to perform on, and supplied as well with innumerable objects. They had only to look a few yards to the west, up Portsburgh, or to the east, up the Gra.s.smarket and Cowgate, to be certain that "a ten pounds," all prepared, was walking or staggering as if every roll to a side offered to be one into their arms. They had thus reason, if they had been of a philosophical habit,--and one had the poetry of sentiment--to thank the great genius Society for his injustice to his own members. And what an extraordinary injustice it appears, when we consider that the high head of Wealth is upheld by the tax of respect imposed upon the poor and the humble! If there were no inferiors to witness a man's greatness, he would be great no more; and yet those who are the soil from which this moral grandness springs are left to rot, as if the more it approached to compost the ranker would be the tribute to his mightiness: so, without abating our horror of these men, we cannot altogether forget that the sufferers in most instances were cast away by Mammon to be in turn immolated to Mammon.

They had in short a bank--Heaven knows, not of "elegance"--upon which they could pa.s.s a draft when they chose; nor was it forged--they were themselves the drawers, and the money seemed to belong to no one; so careless at that time--it is, we hope, different now--was society of those whom it was bound to look after and protect. So money was again needed, and Burke was to pa.s.s the draft, because perhaps his companion thought that as there is (of course) honour among thieves, so fair play must be esteemed a jewel among manslayers. And here the strange circ.u.mstance occurred, in the midst of all these strange things, that his draft was to be endorsed _by a constable_. He had been among his dear friends in the Canongate,--and a man or a woman had now a value for him which a short time before he never dreamt of,--thinking of how he could make some of them more dear to him than they seemed to be to themselves, when his attention was directed to a poor unfortunate, steeped in poverty and drink, in the hands of a police officer. Mixing with the crowd, he went up to the officer, and, with much apparent sympathy, interfered for one who had no home and no friends to care for her. He would furnish that home, at least for a time, and be that friend. The poor woman, like some of the others who had wondered that they should become objects of interest, looked at him as one may be supposed to do who has considered herself past the hope of man's charity. Some of the crowd, struck with the offer, backed the sympathiser, and the policeman, considering for a little, at last consented, giving her up to the kind friend,--no other than a philanthropist of the humbler order, but perhaps not the less sincere,--and enjoining upon him the due performance of his promise.

Having got his charge, the crowd--whose curiosity was served not less than its benevolence, for these poor people feel intensely for each other's sorrows, the more by reason that no one else does--separated. Then, alas!

the old story. The tempter and the victim pace the streets towards the block-altar of the sacrifice; and as they go, we may consider how many have achieved a world-wide notoriety for having concocted one of these acts, with the attending circ.u.mstances of having watched their opportunity and been defeated, and still kept to their purpose, and, veiling all in romantic mystery, at length effected their object. Such men, and their solitary performance, with which they were contented, or to which they were limited by the gallows, are only qualified to form a meagre episode to the terrible drama we are with so much imperfection evolving; even as Faust's vision rose in curling smoke, and took on the gigantic form of a being out of nature and belonging to another world. We have heard of hardened men who gave those they intended to sacrifice time to pray. There was allowed only short shrift in Log's lodgings. Before nightfall this woman lay doubled up in a tea-chest. We will not disturb you in your pause as your mind, led by her who dropped pity's tear on the written words of the recording angel, goes away back to the youth or the maidenhood of this woman. The "perhaps" has a weakness in it, but who shall gainsay, with the doctrine of chances against him, that she was, as you may be, beautiful and good, yea, at one time looking forward to years of happiness, a redeemed's death, and a Christian's funeral, even with that confidence which--blessings on your pitiful heart!--will be sanctified and verified to you, because it is in G.o.d?

We are not done with the waifs even so far as known, and their number has never been recorded. It was a practice of Burke to wander out in the early mornings. He would have been seen pacing the solitude of the deserted streets even before c.o.c.k-crow. Nor could any man tell the reason: it was not asked, not even speculated upon. Like the traces of sympathetic ink, the notice lay unverified, till the great disclosure, when it came up fresh into many minds. And it came up all at once, with the suspicion that he did not go those solitary rounds for contemplation, far less from remorse; a feeling which, so far as can be ascertained--for the pang of the wistful look of the dumb boy was suspected to be a mere trick of the prison confessional--never ruffled his pillow. The night-hawk goes to bed in the early morning, before the choir offer their song to the rising sun, and these catch no flies till he is far up in the heavens. The first surmise of the discovery of what had been doing in Log's lodgings sprang the suspicion with elastic rapidity, that these early walks were undertaken in prosecution of the old purpose, and specially stimulated by an interest in that inst.i.tution--to be found, we believe, nowhere else--the cinder-women;[8] not singing-birds these, if he was not a night-hawk; but the osprey is as early on the long sands, when there is not to be seen there a living thing, except the gulls, as they pace so securely the edge of the sea.

A very early riser in Edinburgh is impressed with the sight of these thin, haggard figures flitting from backet to backet in the great solitude. The only moving creatures in the long streets,--if you did not know they had any other object in view,--you would think that, being immured in the dark dens of the Old Town, and ashamed to shew their faces during the day, they crawl out to get a _glimpse_ of their old haunts, where, as unfortunates, (the greater number,) they once flaunted their charms, till they faded to the point of recoil. You would say, too, that they belonged neither to this world nor any other--mere pendencies, with no solidity to keep them on the earth, and no wings to take them from it--hopeless, too, and fearless, not from despair or pa.s.sion, but from sheer inanity--glimmers, not lights, flickering at the end of wicks, with no oil except what they have imbibed long before. It was this prey that brought the prowler out so early in the morning; and he might have revelled in a field so fruitful long enough, without that risk of discovery which attended his other a.s.saults. Friendless as they are, with years intervening since they were cast off, not only from society, but from those who once knew them,--some wors.h.i.+ppers of beauty, perhaps,--there were none to inquire after them, scarcely any to miss them, except a sister straggler, who might wonder for a moment why a shadow had disappeared.

That more of these creatures fell into his hands than the culprit confessed, was the general opinion of the time. One, at least, was certain, as a waif scarcely worthy of mention among so many cases, and these so much more _eclatants_. On that eventful morning he was more early than usual; the gray mists only as yet disappearing, and the figures he sought for looming as shadows here and there at long intervals. It was supposed to be in the New Town where he encountered the hopeless, soulless creature, sc.r.a.ping as usual in a dust-box, picking up the bits of cinders, and peering in the dim light for the chance turn-up of the sign of some servant's _lachete_. A more easy approach than ever, with the charmed "dram" on his lips, sufficient to bring the light of hope once more to the cinder eyes. Even the long distance from the New Town, by the Mound and the Bow, to Log's lodgings, as they paced and paced, would only increase the hope, to be gratified at the end. And of course it was gratified; so cheap a purchase, too, where the oil was all in the wick, and the blue glimmer, rendered for a short time white by a gla.s.s only once repeated, would recede into unconsciousness almost before the energy to take advantage of it was up in arms. While this work was doing, in which the accomplice rose from his sleep to join, the women were in bed--saved in this instance from the trouble of their delicacy in going into another room, or the pa.s.sage, as they sometimes did. Nay, the c.o.c.k had not crowed before all was over. The gurgling sound would be weak. It has been said that the death-scream of the surprised sinner, and the dying prayer of the Christian, are the extremes which terminate two courses of life. They may be the last signs in this world and the first in the next, as they are the farewell to time or the salutation to eternity. Who was there to care?

The Relative.

So far we have had details through the medium of confessions uttered when the only _terriculumentum_ to be feared by those who had no belief in a hereafter--the law--had given forth her decree of death, supplemented as these were by collateral testimony, or, rather, desultory remarks of others who had seen portions of the drama; but in some instances there were thrown across the light which at last illuminated the mystery, certain shadows with no defined forms, and through which the light shone only to make them lurid.

Of this kind of partially-revealed secrets was the story of the young cousin. No name or personal marks or place of origin ever came to the public ear, far less the form or features of the sacrificed; only, and no more, that a cousin of Helen M'Dougal's,--by uncle or aunt uncertain,--left her mother and sister,--from whence, also under the gnome,--to visit her relative in Edinburgh. It was known that she entered under the door-lintel of Log's lodgings, and was never seen again. If the world, as a spasmodic poet tells us, were destroyed, a few atoms left of the wreck, with their internal forces of attraction and repulsion, would enable a philosopher to tell how it was made. We smile at the extravagance, while we acknowledge some kind of truth, which we cannot understand. These small traces of the little world of crime within the back room "with the window looking out on the dead wall," long since destroyed and erased from the bigger world of which it formed a part and the shame, may be brought together and filled up by the imagination, with a certainty so far removed from the feeling of fiction, that we might scarcely regret the want of particulars. We have had small need of that faculty in our history; yet, comparatively, of that little world we know next to nothing. We might as well deny to the welcomed cousin a name and a place of birth, as refuse to believe that she went into that house with the expectation of meeting friends.h.i.+p, if not love, to a greater degree than what was held out to the hope of others. They would shake hands with her--(what love and hypocrisy don't?)--and there would be inquiries after the mother, and the sister too;--just what takes place at all such meetings. Nor are we to forget the welcome in the still more common shape, not the fatted calf, but the bottle of whisky, so useful an auxiliary there. If the paramour or husband of her cousin ever sung his sentimental airs, he would surely not refuse on the occasion of a visit of one allied to him in the bonds of affinity. There could not help being joy, for it was through the light of the feeling of mirth that these eight eyes looked on the guest they were making happy. Those who have read the German tale of the two eyes which followed everywhere Hans Kauffmann, and never glared upon him but when he was alone in the dark, and which at an after-period he saw s.h.i.+ning in the face of his enemy, as that enemy, the wreaker of vengeance, stood over him with the thirsty sword, may trace a resemblance; but as for these eyes of the four hosts looking anger on the poor relative, we may safely place that among the impossibilities--and surely we do that more easily than we can fancy the expression of that peculiar welcome.

We wonder how nature so often leaves us in the dark. We cannot understand that she has so much to do that she is for ever in a hurry, so that we only see at times the skirt of her cloak. Then we are ourselves so restless and impatient for knowledge, that we snuff the candle of our inquiry so often that we can see nothing. Perhaps all this is intended for the purpose of giving us a wider world of imagination, and more ardour in peopling it with all its strange beings, spectral images, protean forms, wild movements--for what further end we know not, but we work our privilege in these days of fiction very well. The veil is often an exaggerator, but in this act of our drama it seems hard to fill up the unknown recesses with possibilities equal to the realities. Just try to supply the required minutiae to the few words said to have been uttered by Helen M'Dougal. After many months of fruitless inquiry, met with a denial that any one in Log's lodgings had seen the young cousin, the mother and sister, probably under suspicion of some foul play, went to the house of Constantine Burke, the brother of our man. Helen M'Dougal happened to be present, and to the request again made to know what had become of the girl, the woman, who must have been under the influence of drink, for at this time the explosion had not taken place, answered, "Oh, you need not trouble yourselves about Jessy. She was murdered, and sold long ago."

Among the cases of mere outline and shadowy traces, suspected to have been more in number, as including more waifs than admitted, we may place another. It seems to have been a bargain between the two princ.i.p.al actors that their work should be conjunct in action as well as in payment. On one occasion, Burke, having now plenty of money, went to the country on a pleasure jaunt. Yes; pleasure. Amidst all our philosophy and inquiry into causes and motives, would we not save ourselves a deal of trouble by attributing nine-tenths of the actions of men, not excepting murder, to a desire for pleasure? All swallow the love-apple bait presented by some wicked genius of the devil, who sports with the affections of mankind.

The beguiler laughs as he angles. Some victims afford him fine "rises,"

and look shy, only to come again to bite in earnest. Some swallow and enjoy the sweet morsel, until the hook approaches the pylorus of their reason. Some disgorge it, to seek it again; others break the line and run away with the hook, to die in secret places under a crag. Some are caught by a fin, and carry the mark of the forbidden pleasure only to excite them to another trial; others are held on till they reach the bank, where they writhe in agony amidst sunbeams, wild thyme, and gaudy flowers, with the laugh of the tempter sounding in their ears. And some, on being swung ash.o.r.e, get entangled _in a tree_, and hang there by the neck. How few can nibble off cunningly the _cib.u.m praefixum aere_, and avoid the snare! Burke had gone on a pleasure jaunt--not to be hooked yet. On his return he found Log's lodgings as he left them; nor did he suspect that any of the unholy work had been performed in his absence. If the old orgies had been continued,--and how could they now be renounced when the increasing weight of all those deeds must have been pressing more and more on their hearts, however they might try to conceal it, and required the old art of buoyancy as a counter-agent?--there had been plenty of money to supply the means, so that Burke thought that no march had been stolen upon him by his cunning colleague. It happened, however, that he had occasion soon after his return to call at the hall in Surgeon's Square--perhaps to get the price, or part of it, of the last burden. He was there told by one of the a.s.sistants that his friend had been there shortly before with a box, not empty, and had been paid for it. He even got the day of the month and the hour of the evening, from which he saw that his co-actor had been secretly, as he said, working during his absence "on his own hook."

Enraged at this want of honour, he repaired to the house, where he found his friend, and taxed him with the fraud. Hare stoutly denied the charge.

The women were appealed to, but neither of them would admit anything; for we are to remember that both of them were not only in fear of their respective lords, but of those of each other. Nay, we have seen Hare using as much liberty of punis.h.i.+ng M'Dougal when his friend was present, as Burke had of thras.h.i.+ng Mrs Hare, which it is certain he often did. Nay, the women even had their battles royal, and the men were, as well, often engaged in fierce conflict. The present subject was a _delicate_ one. It touched the honour of contractors, the purse of sordidness, and the faith of friends.h.i.+p. Well, we verily believe that even Burke was fit for these heroics, and he was fit for something else. He fell upon his friend with fury, and Hare, ever ready for battle with all and sundry, not excepting his wife, retaliated. They fought long and desperately, the women looking on with only that concern which might find its account in so being revenged for some prior cruelty exercised toward them by one or the other, perhaps both. This was one of those riots which so much disturbed the neighbours. A crowd, as usual, collected at the door, but even the exasperation of the parties could not force out the secret of their quarrel. It would have been strange indeed if it had! and we say this even in the midst of daily examples of anger roused to a pitch of opening the floodgates of very dark things, even to the confusion and ruin of the angry, and so far involuntary, confessor. How little did that crowd of spectators know what these men were fighting about!

But if the subject was the price of a human body, whose spirit was it that enlivened it--man or woman, young or old, good or evil? The creature pa.s.sed away in the middle of a large city renowned for civilisation, and even with the tread of pa.s.sers-by reaching the scene, more secretly than one who perishes at sea; for, in that case, though there is none to see, there are always some to draw a conclusion. Yet, withal, we cannot say that Providence does not vindicate the importance of its creatures. That victim would, for certain, be mourned somewhere. There are even notes of woe in the grove, when the missing mate is snared by the fowler, though no one may be there to hear. It was remarked at the time when the great secret burst, and the news flew on the back of broadsheets throughout the land, that there were scarcely any direct declarations of claims. Even when conviction was heavy on the heart that a missing relative could in a certain way be accounted for, the issues were spasmed, and people only looked their thoughts. If the whisper pa.s.sed, it was only among close relatives, and they kept the secret to themselves, even to the exclusion of friends. It was from this cause that the papers could not, with all their efforts, pander to the curiosity of the public by giving names. Nay, so awe-struck was that public itself, that, after the first excitement and wonder, and after Burke had paid the penalty, there seemed a wish to hurry away from both the subject and its details. They wanted back to their natural feelings and sympathies; and the hurriedness with which the crimes were laid past, with the resolution that they should not be mentioned, seemed to hold some ratio to their gigantic proportions. But the reasons which actuated the people of the time are not these by which posterity is to be influenced; for vice, whatever may be its degree, must ever be the foil of goodness, and the punishment of the wicked the sanction of virtue.

It was even said by one of the newspapers of the day, that these records would at some future time form the materials out of which some Sir Walter would weave a romance. The prophecy is not justified in us. The romance-writer will come; at present, we are content with the office of chronicler.

How much we could wish that these things had never been left to us to chronicle, and how much too that what we have already said were the worst we have to say! But thus begun, it behoved that the obstinacy of these men should harden more and more; that the recklessness increased by success should, according to rule, get more and more regardless of danger, till the delirium of wickedness should throw them into the hands of justice.

Already "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground."

The Study for the Artist.

If these conspirators against society had limited their operations to the waifs,--a wide enough field surely in a city like Edinburgh, renowned at the time for the extent of the wide tattered fringe of the social web,--they might have remained undetected for a lengthened period;--ay, even until they had cut off hundreds; and why they left this secure area can only be accounted for by that universal law whereby the doers of evil acquire a confidence which blinds them to all sense of danger. The bold and reckless case of the young cousin was the first indication of the coming change, and we will see with what rapidity the progress was pursued in terms of that inevitable decree of Providence.

It has been mentioned that Burke had a brother of the name of Constantine, who, having driven a desultory trade something of the nature of that followed by his brother and his a.s.sociate, had become a street-sweeper or scavenger, and lived in Gibb's Close in the Canongate. It never was satisfactorily established that this man was acquainted with the conspiracy, although many suspicions, especially arising out of the case of Mary Paterson, which is now to form the burden of our chapter, appeared to hang heavy upon him. For once the scene of death was changed from the old shambles to Gibb's Close. Mary Paterson, a young girl of eighteen or nineteen years of age, of remarkably handsome form, as to which we will hear more by and by, and who turned her attractions to no other use than that of _the old abuse_, had been, along with a companion named Janet Brown, lodged in the Canongate Police-office, on Tuesday the 8th of April 1828. They were kept till four or five o'clock next morning, when they repaired to the house of a person called Mrs Laurie, where they had formerly lodged together. They had been for some time constant friends, and had more of affection for each other than is generally found among individuals of their cla.s.s. The woman, who felt for them, expressed a wish that they should remain, but, for some reason unknown, they preferred another course, and went to the house of one Swanston, who sold drink.

They got there a gill of whisky, and when they were drinking the spirits, their eye fell upon Burke, who was there even at that hour, busy drinking rum and bitters with the landlord. They had never seen Burke before, and made no sign of a wish to enter into conversation with him; but he, who appeared to have been watching them, came forward, and, affecting to be much taken with them, ordered an additional supply of the rum and bitters; nor did this drinking bout finish till three gills were consumed in addition to what they had drunk before. Of this drink Burke partic.i.p.ated largely; and, indeed, it was supposed that he often wrought himself designedly up to his required point of courage by the means of liquor when he had any special work to accomplish.

In the course of the debauch, and when he discovered that the girls were of that kind who, when begun to drink, are regardless of limits, he proposed that they should accompany him to his lodgings, which he said were close by. Mary was willing enough, but her companion, Brown, shewed signs of reluctance, not probably being much enamoured of their new friend. Whereupon he roused himself to remove her scruples, by shewing money, and stating that he was a pensioner, and could keep her, Brown, handsomely, even make her comfortable for life; and that if she had any fears of the people in the house, he would stand by her against any insolence or abuse. All this attention, as Brown subsequently stated, was, as she thought, directed to her in preference to Mary--with whom, as for personal recommendations, she could not compete--in consequence of her shy and backward nature wherein she was a contrast to her friend, who was of a disposition fearless and forward. Besides, he knew from their apparent affection for each other that the one would not accompany him without the other. At length Brown gave up her scruples, and all the more readily that he made the additional offer to provide a good breakfast for them, as an earnest of all that which he had promised to do for them. Matters being now arranged, he bought from Swanston two bottles of whisky, one of which he gave to each of the two girls to carry. He then conducted them to the house of Constantine Burke, where they found that man and his wife already up, but with the fire as yet unlighted. Whereupon Burke got into a great fury, abusing the woman for negligence in not paying more attention--a feint with a meaning of which some supposed she was not altogether ignorant.

Straightway the gloomy aspect of the miserable house, the residence of so rich a pensioner, was removed by the new-lighted fire, and the woman with all activity set to work, in which she was joined by her handy brother-in-law, to produce a hearty breakfast for her lodger and guests.

Tea, bread and b.u.t.ter, eggs and finnan haddocks, covered the table. They were now merry: the effects of the previous drink had not yet died away, while the breakfast before them, and the promises of the new friend, all tended towards a state of happiness to which the poor girls were total strangers. Meanwhile the brother, who joined in the breakfast, left shortly to proceed to his work; and the meal having been finished, with the cups and other things left remaining on the table, the two bottles of whisky were produced. The drinking again commenced, Burke still partic.i.p.ating to a large extent, at the same time that he pressed gla.s.s after gla.s.s profusely upon the girls. The impulsive and reckless Mary, still true to her character, shewed no scruples. One gla.s.s followed another, till by and by the drug began to shew signs of a speedy triumph; but Brown was more chary, often refusing the proffered poison; not that she had any suspicions of evil design on the part of the generous pensioner, but simply because she did not wish to get drunk--a consummation so clearly impending, with two bottles on the table, and only three partic.i.p.ants.

Burke now saw that Mary, who had fallen back on the chair all but unconscious, was safe. The next step to be taken in his scheme, which, notwithstanding the enormous quant.i.ty of drink he had swallowed, he prosecuted deliberately, was to get Brown, still comparatively sober, out of the house; and he cunningly proposed to go along with her for a walk, to revive them after their potations. The girl at once agreed, and, leaving Mary in her narcotised condition, they sallied forth; but the purpose of a walk was changed, and, inconsistently enough, Brown soon found herself in another public-house with her generous and most persevering friend. Here two bottles of London stout were ordered, along with a pie, and the girl, whose natural caution and shyness were not proof against so much seduction, drank a large share of the porter, Burke himself shewing no reluctance to partic.i.p.ate as well, knowing not only that he could stand a great amount of drink, but that the more he took, within the limits of consciousness, if not coolness, the better able he would be for the execution of his purpose--in this instance, as it appeared, a double one, involving both the girls at the same time, or, at least, with a short intervening interval. The porter having had its due effect upon Brown, who was yet, however, far from "the point," he then induced her to accompany him again to the house they had left. Here the remainder of the two bottles of whisky was produced, Mary all the time lying almost unconscious, and only raising her head at times, and looking with stupid earnestness on the proceedings.

Now there comes up a new incident in the play, which has never been well explained. All of a sudden Helen M'Dougal, whom we might have supposed to be in Log's lodgings, who had not appeared at breakfast, and had not hitherto been seen by the girls, starts violently out of a bed. There is a whisper by Constantine's wife in the ear of Brown, that the apparition is no other than Burke's wife; and the latter immediately commenced, with all appearance of a jealous fury, to accuse the girls of having the intention of corrupting her husband. The part was so well acted, that Brown, getting alarmed, entreated forgiveness, on the plea that neither she nor Mary had known that he was married, otherwise they would not have remained in his company. The play proceeds. Helen M'Dougal breaks down: she was, she said, not angry with them, only with her husband, who was continually deserting her, spending his money on loose women, and leading a life of dissipation.

She then asked them to remain, and with such apparent sincerity that Brown was satisfied, but as for Mary she was incapable of understanding a much less complicated plot. M'Dougal next turned against Burke, upbraiding him for his infidelity, taking up the things that were upon the table, das.h.i.+ng them into the fire, and otherwise exhibiting the height of a woman's pa.s.sion. Nor was Burke indolent or regardless of this fierce onset; he retaliated, and taking up a dram-gla.s.s hurled it against her face, hitting her above the eye, and cutting, even to profuse bleeding, her forehead. At this time, or a few minutes before, Constantine's wife rushed out of the house, with the intention, as Brown subsequently supposed, of bringing Hare, but it is more probable, on the supposition of an art-and-parts.h.i.+p, to the extent at least of knowledge, that she found some good reason for being merely absent. Immediately after her departure, Burke succeeded, with an apparent effort, in turning Helen M'Dougal to the door, and locking it after her.

Pausing a little in the midst of our narrative, we may remark, that although it was generally supposed that this quarrel between Burke and Helen M'Dougal was got up for the purpose of confusion, yet it is not easy to see how any end could have been served by it; while the cutting of the woman's face had too much seriousness about it, even as a part of the terrible drama, to admit of the theory of an entire feint. The discrepancy may be reconciled by the introduction of another pa.s.sion, jealousy, but this we cannot recognise, however true, except upon the a.s.sumption that M'Dougal had some reason in her own mind to lead her to the suspicion that Burke could be unfaithful to her with the very women he intended to slay.

Nor, however aggravating this may be, where aggravation seemed impossible, it cannot be held as transcending the potentialities of a nature altogether alienated from G.o.d, especially when we keep in remembrance the true character of the pa.s.sion thus imputed to Burke, as being so often utterly independent of the emotion of love, in which a moral sentiment forms a necessary element. This collision, as it were, between the desire that Burke should _kill_, and another, that he should not _possess_, would produce that irregularity, as we term it, in the plot which imparts to the acting the incongruity so difficult to the a.n.a.lyses of the time. But while it in some measure interferes with the unity so congenial to the romancist, and which we unreasonably look for in nature, because it is more consistent with art, it presents us with a picture of human nature never before witnessed out of the domain of extravagant fiction.

At the time that Burke returned, after the locking out, Mary was lying across the bed, not having been able, even during the heat and noise of battle, to lift her head to satisfy the natural curiosity of her s.e.x, if the curiosity itself was not altogether sopited. Burke knew the prolonged continuance of these states, proportioned as they were to the quant.i.ty of poison he had seen swallowed. So Mary is laid up as a reserve, ready for his a.s.sault at any time within the period of hours. He therefore turned his attention to the less easy subject, her companion, expressing still greater kindness to her, and pressing her by all manner of solicitation to lie down along with him in the bed from which, shortly before, his wife had so unexpectedly sprung, and who, even yet, with continued inconsistency, persisted in knocking at the door. So strong were these solicitations, and so affected was Brown with the drink she had taken, that, according to her own statement afterwards, she would have complied with his request if it had not been that she was terrified by the noise made by M'Dougal. Either supposition is possible, that he wished to gratify a purpose upon the one, and then execute his final intention upon her companion; or that he intended to immolate first the more difficult victim, and then take his own time with the other.

Fortunately the poor girl was able to resist his entreaties, as much probably through some instinctive feeling as from prudence. Anxious to get away, she expressed a wish to depart, to which Burke at first shewed no inclination, but at length, and probably under the pressure of an apprehension that, inebriated as she was, she might call for a.s.sistance, and thus deprive him of Mary, whom, as she lay still senseless, he already calculated upon as his own, he agreed to her request. He even conducted her past Helen M'Dougal, who was still upon the stair, either under the influence of her jealousy or of the old delicacy which so often took her out of the view of the final catastrophes. In all this Brown made a narrow escape, for whether Mrs Constantine Burke had really gone for the other, and perhaps greater, arch-conspirator, Hare, or not, it is certain that that fearful man arrived at Gibb's Close not long after the departure of Brown. The moment Hare arrived, and there being now no one in the house except themselves, and the unconscious Mary still lying in bed, they fell straight upon their victim. The old story again. The process was familiar to them--the energy at ready call--the execution easy. Burke springs upon the senseless victim--Hare is at his post--the heavy body pressing with the knees upon the soft bosom--the closing up of the mouth and nose--the gurgling--the long inspirations--the watchings to listen, and listen again, and examine if all was finished--the make-sure--the finish. So quickly had the process been gone through that, on Brown's return, not more than twenty minutes afterwards, Mary Paterson was lying dead, but concealed from her observation by having been flung into a corner and covered up.

It may be of interest now to trace Brown. After getting past Helen M'Dougal, who was on the stair, about, no doubt, to watch the process inside, she went straight to Mrs Laurie's, and told her, with a laugh, that she would not remain with her, as she had got fine lodgings elsewhere; but after informing the landlady more seriously of the circ.u.mstances, she was advised to go back, along with Mrs Laurie's servant, and endeavour to get Mary removed; not, however, that either the one or the other had any fears of her ultimate safety. The accompaniment of the servant was probably another of the apparently accidental means by which the life of this girl was preserved. Half stupified as she still was, she did not recollect the name of the close in which the house was situated, and being at a loss, but still anxious about her comrade, whom she loved, she applied to Swanston for a direction to the residence of the man whom she had seen there in the morning, and with whom she and her friend had gone. The man replied, that they ought not to have gone with him, because he was a married man, and did not keep company with women of their kind, but that she would probably find him in his brother's house, in Gibb's Close. Still, so stupified was she that, after getting into the close, she went into the wrong house, where she was told that the people there kept no company with such characters, but that she would probably feel herself in the right direction by going up-stairs. They accordingly ascended, entered, and found there Helen M'Dougal, Hare, and Hare's wife.

The dead prey had collected the ravens even within so short a time. Burke was absent--no doubt in Surgeon's Square; but those present, with the corpse within a few feet of them, were as unconcerned as if one among them had been engaged in throttling a chicken for dinner.

Upon inquiry for her friend, Mrs Hare rushed forward and attempted to strike Brown,--a movement not easily accounted for, except upon the supposition of a feminine way of repelling an intruder upon their secrecy, who might be dangerous; but this burst gave way to a quieter demeanour, the result of greater prudence, for the recklessness of pa.s.sion is not exclusive of minor means of self-preservation. They told her that Mary had gone out with Burke, and invited her to sit down and take a gla.s.s with them, upon which the servant left. Brown now saw Hare's eye fixed upon her, and no doubt her partial inebriation was a temptation which was touching; and Helen M'Dougal continued her part of the play, by railing against her husband for going away with the girl whose dead body was actually in the room. Brown, surrounded by the three fiends, was again in danger; but, fortunately, Mrs Laurie, who had got alarmed at the report of the servant, upon what precise grounds is not known, sent back the girl to bring away Brown. No attempt was made to retain her in the presence of the servant, but she was invited to return,--a circ.u.mstance so adverse to the policy of keeping away so interested an inquirer as to be almost proof of their intention to send her after her friend, the double object of the price of her body and the seal of secrecy being the motive.

Meanwhile, changes had been going on in the house; and when Brown, in the afternoon, again called, Hare was gone--having given up his hope of the further prey, as he would calculate upon Brown's gradual return to sobriety. She was now told that Burke and Mary had never returned. Further inquiries were made, not only by Brown, but by a Mrs Worthington, with whom the two girls lived, and then another story was trumped up, to the effect that Mary had gone on the tramp with a packman to Glasgow. This story pleased Brown less than the other, which carried the inconsistency of a recovery from drunken unconsciousness in so short a time; while the tramp to Glasgow, and no intimation from that quarter, were equally unlike the habits of the girl, who could write an intelligent letter, and would certainly have done so if for no other object than to inform Brown of her departure and to claim her clothes, which still lay in Mrs Worthington's.

No further intelligence was ever obtained till the great break up. The fate of Mary Paterson was meanwhile a mystery. But when we take into account the vagrant habits of these restless and changeful beings, we need make no reproach on the want of affection of friends or relatives.

We may state here that Brown believed firmly that Constantine Burke and his wife were cognisant of this affair, both from their manner at the time and the conduct of the man afterwards when she questioned him about Mary.

Often, when he was at his work in the morning, she inquired if he had heard any further intelligence of her companion, but the answers were surly and s.n.a.t.c.hy,--"How the h--ll can I tell about you sort of people, here to-day and away to-morrow?" or, again, "I am often out upon my lawful business, and how can I answer for all that takes place in my house in my absence?" And so the inquiries for Mary Paterson died away for lack of satisfaction, and the only hope that remained was that some day she would cast up when weary of her wanderings with the packman.

The account which Brown gave of this unfortunate creature is touching. She admitted that she was irregular in her habits, but far from being low in her grade; and expressed her indignation at a paltry print which appeared of her, representing her in the garb of a servant, a dress in which she never appeared. She had been well educated for one in her sphere, and possessed, as we have already said, a fine person, for which she was remarkable. She was a native of Edinburgh; and her mother being dead, she was left to herself, driven along in her career by a frowardness of purpose and impulsiveness of feeling, not yet inconsistent with a warm heart and kindly affections.

The supplement of the story is given by one of the confessions of Burke.

He cut the hair off her head when she was still warm. It will be remembered that he formerly dealt in this commodity, and Mary's was too long and beautiful to be given to the doctors. It might one day figure as her own on a lady of rank;--and how little she would know of the fate of her whom it had adorned, as adorning it! But to what end? Even that of the poisonous flower of Paphos, which is said to have the most beautiful petals, and to throw them the soonest away. Within four hours Burke and Hare took the body to Surgeon's Square. It was then cold enough, but had not yet got time to a.s.sume the stiffness of the dead. When uncovered, a tall lad who was along with Mr Ferguson, one of Dr Knox's a.s.sistants, expressed surprise and said that he knew the girl, and had been with her a day or two before. Sharp questions followed as to where and how she had been got, when Burke satisfied the inquirers--wondrous facility!--that he had purchased the body from an old woman at the back of the Canongate. Nor did the story finish here; So struck was Knox with the beauty and fine proportions of the body of Mary, that he invited an artist to come to the rooms to see it, for the benefit of his profession; and with the conservative instinct of an old museum collector, the curious Professor kept his favourite specimen three months in whisky. No wonder that this case roused the suspicions of the public against the doctors,--a subject we will take up in a subsequent chapter. Opinions ran high, and both sides had their reasons and their arguments, upon all which we shall attempt a judgment.

Daft Jamie.

The work goes on, with a change of shambles. Some time after the scene in Constantine Burke's house in Gibb's Close, Burke and Helen M'Dougal removed from Log's house to that of a relation of theirs of the name of Broggan. It was never properly ascertained whether this separation was the consequence of a quarrel between the parties, or whether it was imagined that another establishment would furnish additional opportunities for carrying on the trade. The latter opinion seems to have been justified by their joint operations having undergone no interruption. Broggan's house was admirably adapted for working the conspiracy, provided the inmates could be relied on, a condition indispensable where the house consisted of only one apartment, though with a convenient dark pa.s.sage into which the females could retreat as a safeguard to their feelings. If we are surprised that four individuals could be found in the world to harmonise in a confederacy for so extraordinary a purpose, we come to be appalled with wonder and dismay at the apparent facility they found in conciliating the scruples of those who could have derived but little reward for their silence. We have seen Constantine Burke and his wife acting the aiding confidants, and now we see another man and his wife brought over with apparently little difficulty. We seek for the explanation of course in the power of money, but this does not allay the wonder, if it does not rather increase it, as extending the charm of that agent even beyond what we could ever have dreamed of its influence.

The first tragedy in the new theatre involved the fate of a decent woman, the widow of a porter named Ostler, who lived in the Gra.s.smarket, and who had died shortly before. She gained her livelihood in an industrious, if not laborious way, mainly by was.h.i.+ng and dressing, eking it out by any desultory work she could find, sometimes in the country during harvest.

She had been accustomed to visit Broggan's house in her vocation of washerwoman, and was well known to the neighbours, both from her long residence among them, and her frequent visits to the mangle at that time kept by a woman of the name of Mrs Law. One day this woman was seen to enter Broggan's house at a time when Burke was known to be there, and some of the neighbours noticed, though without paying any particular attention to the circ.u.mstance, that some time after she entered, there came from the apartment sounds of jollity, as if the inmates had got merry under the influence of drink. Burke himself exerted his musical powers, and Mrs Ostler, not to be behind, favoured the happy party with her favourite song--"Home, sweet home," which she sung in a wavering treble, not without sweetness. The symposium was no further noticed, nor was it exactly known who formed the party, but that Broggan's wife was in the house at the time, may be inferred from the fact, afterwards ascertained, that about that period she lay in of a child. From that hour Mrs Ostler was never seen. She was despatched some time after the singing of "Home, sweet home," and carried to Surgeon's Square the same evening. The ancients were fond of the subject of the shortness, the brittleness, and the vanity of human life. Homer has his soap-bubble, Plutarch his point of time, Plato his peregrination, and so forth, and the moderns imitate them. Yet, at the worst, man has generally made some little sign even at the death of a beggar. It was reserved for Portsburgh to be the place where life disappeared like a snuffed-out candle in mid-day--the hand unseen, the light scarcely missed--even the material which supplied it gone as if by magic. If Mrs Ostler was soon missed, the speculation died away under the ordinary supposition, that she had fallen into some water; and there was an end.

The first murder after the change of residence was a mere prelude to an act--_heu! heu! vita vehementer effera et barbara!_--altogether Cyclopic.

There lived in Edinburgh in that year--1828--an imbecile of the name of James Wilson, or, as he was called, "Daft Jamie." His residence was in Stevenson's Close, Canongate; but, with the exception of the night-time, he was seldom at home, being, like most of his cla.s.s, a great wanderer; nor were his wanderings limited to the Old Town--he was seen everywhere, and seemed never to be weary. Though evidently deficient in intellect, he was strong and healthy in the body, going in all weathers bareheaded and barefooted, without injury to his const.i.tution, and without a murmur of discontent. Never was there a more happy creature of the kind than Daft Jamie; for while, as we too well know, those thus afflicted were at that time, when they were less than now under the public care, often the objects of hatred, more often of sport and play to the young of the lower cla.s.ses, Jamie was a universal favourite. It was not that the inhabitants of Edinburgh merely pitied him--they really liked him. Perfectly harmless and inoffensive, and not uncomely in his appearance, he possessed great kindliness of heart; and to all who had occasion to be on the streets of Edinburgh, whether early or late, he was familiar, always dressed much in the same way,--the good-humoured, winning smile never absent from his full round face,--always ready to salute by a peculiar manner of taking the front lock of his hair between his finger and thumb, nodding quickly, bowing and smiling. We can say, from experience, that there was no resisting Jamie's smile and the twitch of the lock, and you felt this if you had a penny in your pocket, which was all the more readily given that he never seemed to wish for it. Nay, he sometimes rejected money, saying that he didn't need it, for that he had "the f.e.c.k o' half-a-croon on him."