Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XXII Part 10

When he returned, he kept hovering about the entrance into the show, as if to prevent the egress of any one, but without making any sign to me, or even looking at me. My agitation during this interval was excessive; and although I strictly obeyed my friend's injunctions, notwithstanding that I knew not to what they were to lead, I could not suppress the dreadful feelings by which I was distracted. I, however, did all I could to refrain from exhibiting any outward sign of consciousness of my loss.

To return to my friend. He had not stood, I think, more than a minute at the entrance to the menagerie, when I observed three fellows, after having winked to each other, edging towards it. My friend, on seeing them approach, planted himself in the doorway, and, addressing the first, at the same time extending his arms to keep him back, said--

"Stop a moment, my lad, I have something to say to you."

The fellow seemed taken aback for a moment by this salutation; but, quickly regaining his natural effrontery, he, with a tremendous oath, made an attempt to push past, when four policemen suddenly presented themselves at the entrance.

"Come away, my lads," said my friend, addressing them. "Just in time; a minute later, and the birds would have been flown. Guard the door there a moment." Then, turning to the astonished spectators who were a.s.sembled in the area--"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "there has been a robbery committed here within these fifteen minutes. I saw it done, and know the person who did it; but as he has several colleagues here, all of whom I may not have discovered, I have no doubt that the pocket-book--the article stolen--has been long since transferred to other hands than those that first took it. It is therefore necessary that we should all, without any exception, submit to a search of our persons by the officers here."

No objection to this proceeding having been offered by any of the persons present, the search began; my friend submitting himself the first.

The operation was a tedious one; for it was unsuccessful. One after another, including the three suspicious characters already alluded to, was searched, but no pocket-book was found. At length, the last person was taken in hand; and he, too, proved innocent--at least of the possession of my lost treasure.

I was in despair at this result, thinking that my friend must have been mistaken as to the robbery--that is, as to his having witnessed it--and that my money was irretrievably gone. No such despair of the issue, however, came over my friend--he did not appear in the least disconcerted; but, on the completion of the fruitless search, merely nodded his head, uttering an expressive humph.

"It's gone," said I to him in bitter anguish.

"Patience a bit, my lad," he replied, with a smile. "The pocket-book is within these four walls, and we'll find it too."

Turning now to one of the men belonging to the establishment, he desired him to bring one of the rakes with which they levelled the sawdust in the area.

It was brought; when he set the man to work with it--to rake up, slowly and deliberately, the surface of the sawdust, himself vigilantly superintending the operation, and directing the man to proceed regularly, and to leave no spot untouched. I need not say with what intense interest I watched this proceeding. I felt as if life or death were in the issue; for the loss of such a sum as 30, although it could not, perhaps, be considered a very great one, was sufficiently large to distress my father seriously; and already some idea of never facing him again, should the money not be recovered, began to cross my mind.

All thoughts, however, of this or any other kind were absorbed, for the moment, by the deep interest which I took in the operations of the man with the rake; an interest this in which all present, less or more, partic.i.p.ated.

For a long while this search also was fruitless. More than half the area had been gone over, and there was yet no appearance of my lost treasure.

At length, however--oh! how shall I describe the joy I felt?--a sweep of the rake threw the well-known pocket-book on the surface of the sawdust.

I darted on it, clutched it, tore it open, and saw the bank-notes apparently untouched. I counted them. They were all there.

"I thought so; I thought we should find it," said, with a calm smile, the gentleman who had been so instrumental in its recovery.

The whole proceedings of the thief or thieves, so promptly and correctly conjectured by my friend, were now obvious. Finding that pa.s.sing it from hand to hand would not avail them, he who was last in possession of it had, on the search commencing, dropt it on the ground, and shuffled it under the sawdust with his foot.

The police now requested my friend to point out the person who had committed the robbery, that they might apprehend him; but this he declined, saying that he was not quite sure of the man, and that he would not like to run the risk of blaming an innocent person; adding, with the quiet smile that seemed to be natural to him, that as the money was recovered, it might be as well to let the matter drop. The police for some time insisted on my friend pointing out the man; but as he continued firmly to decline interfering further in the matter, they gave it up and left the place.

Every one saw that it was benevolence, however impoperly exerted, that induced my friend to refuse giving up the culprit; and as I had now recovered my money, I felt pretty much in the same disposition--that was, to allow him to fall into other hands.

I now presented the man who had been employed to rake the area with five s.h.i.+llings, for his trouble. But how or in what way was I to reward the friendly person to whom I was wholly indebted for the recovery of my pocket-book? This puzzled me sadly. Money, at least any such sum as I could spare, I could not offer one who, notwithstanding the little deficiencies in his apparel formerly noticed, had so much the appearance and manner of a gentleman. I was greatly at a loss. In the meantime, my friend and I left the exhibition together; he lecturing me the while, although in the most kindly manner, on the danger of going into crowded places with large sums of money about one's person.

He said he had seen a good deal of the world, had resided long in London, and knew all the tricks of the swell mob.

"It was my knowledge and experience of these gentry," he added, "that enabled me to manage your little matter so successfully." We were at this time pa.s.sing along Stockwell Street, when, observing a respectable-looking tavern, it struck me that I might, without offence, ask my friend to take a little refreshment,--a gla.s.s of wine or so.

With some hesitation, I proposed it.

He smiled; and as if rather complying with my humour, or as if unwilling to offend me by a refusal, said, "Well, my young friend, I have no objection, although I am not greatly in the habit of going to taverns.

Not there, however," he added, seeing me moving towards the house on which I had fixed my eye. "There is a house in the Saltmarket, which, on the rare occasions I do go to a tavern, and that is chiefly for a sight of the papers, I always frequent. They are decent, respectable people.

So we'll go there, if you please; that is, if it be quite the same to you."

I said it was, and that I would cheerfully accompany him wherever he chose.

This point settled, we proceeded to the Saltmarket; when my friend, who, by the way, had now told me that his name was Lancaster, conducted me up a dark, dirty-looking close, and finally into a house of anything but respectable appearance. The furniture was scanty, and what was of it much dilapidated: half the backs of half the chairs were broken off, the tables were dirty and covered with stains and the circular marks of drinking measures. A tattered sofa stood at one end of the apartment, the walls were hung with paltry prints, and the small, old-fas.h.i.+oned, dirty windows hung with dirtier curtains.

To crown all, we met, as we entered, a huge, blowzy, tawdrily dressed woman, of most forbidding appearance, who, I was led to understand, was the mistress of the house. Between this person and Mr. Lancaster I thought I perceived a rapid secret signal pa.s.s as we came in, but was not sure.

All this--namely, the appearance of the house and its mistress, the shabbiness of the entrance to the former, the secret signal, etc.

etc.--surprised me a little; but I suspected nothing wrong--never dreamt of it.

On our taking our seats in the apartment into which we had been shown, I asked my good genius, Mr. Lancaster, what he would choose to drink.

He at once replied that he drank nothing but wine; spirits and malt liquors, he said, always did him great injury.

But too happy to be able to contribute in any way to the gratification of one who had rendered me so essential a service, I immediately ordered a bottle of the best port, he having expressed a preference for that description of wine.

It was brought; when Mr. Lancaster, kindly a.s.suming the character of host, quickly filled our gla.s.ses, when we pledged each other and drank.

Wine, at that time, was no favourite liquor of mine, so that I soon began to show some reluctance to swallowing it.

Mr. Lancaster, perceiving this, began to banter me on my abstemiousness, and to urge me to do more justice to the wine, which he said was excellent.

Prevailed on partly by his urgency, and partly by a fear of displeasing him by further resistance, I now took out my gla.s.s as often as he filled it.

The consequence was, that I soon felt greatly excited; and eventually so much so, that I not only readily swallowed b.u.mper after b.u.mper, but, when our bottle was done, insisted on another being brought in; forgetting everything but my debt of grat.i.tude to Mr. Lancaster, and losing sight, for the moment at any rate, of all my obligations, in the delight with which I listened to his entertaining conversation. For another half hour we went on merrily, and the second bottle of wine was nearly finished, when I suddenly felt a strange sinking sensation come over me. The countenance of Mr. Lancaster, who sat opposite me, seemed to disappear, as did also all the objects with which I was surrounded.

From that moment I became unconscious of all that pa.s.sed. I sank down on the floor in the heavy sleep, or rather in the utter insensibility, of excessive intoxication.

On awaking, which was not until a late hour of the night, I found the scene changed. The room was dark, the bottles and gla.s.ses removed, and my friend Mr. Lancaster gone.

It was some seconds before I felt myself struck by this contrast; that is, before I fully recollected the circ.u.mstances which had preceded my unconsciousness. These, however, gradually unfolded themselves, until the whole stood distinctly before me. After having sat up for a second or two--for I found myself still on the floor when I awoke, having been left to lie where I fell--and having recalled all the circ.u.mstances of the day's occurrences, I instinctively clapped my hand to the breast of my jacket to feel for my pocket-book. It was again gone. Thinking at first that it might have dropt out while I slept, I began groping about the floor; but there was no pocket-book there. In great alarm I now started to my feet, and began calling on the house. My calls were answered by the landlady herself, who, with a candle in her hand, and a fierce expression of face, flushed apparently with drink, entered the apartment, and sternly demanded what I wanted, and what I meant by making such a noise in her house.

Taking no notice of the uncourteous manner in which she had addressed me, I civilly asked her what had become of Mr. Lancaster.

"Who's Mr. Lancaster?" she said fiercely. "I know no Mr. Lancaster."

"The gentleman," I replied, "who came in here with me, and who drank wine with me."

"I know nothing about him," said the virago; "I never saw him before."

"That's strange," said I; "he told me that he was in the habit of frequenting this house."

"If he did so, he told you a lie," replied the lady; "and I tell you again, that I know nothing about him, and that I never saw him before, nor ever expect to see him again."

I now informed her that I missed a pocket-book containing a considerable sum of money, and, simply enough, asked her if she had it, or knew anything about it.

At this, her rage, which before she seemed to have great difficulty in controlling, burst out in the wildest fury.

"I know nothing about your pocket-book," she exclaimed, stamping pa.s.sionately on the floor; "nor do I believe you had one. It's all a fetch to bilk me out of my reckoning; but I'll take care of you, you swindler! I'm not to be done that way. Come, down with the price of the two bottles of wine you and your pal drank--fifteen s.h.i.+llings--or I'll have the worth of them out of your skin." And she flourished the candlestick in such a way as led me to expect every instant that it would descend on my skull.