McLevy (18 page)

Well, my Bess was in a fit of the horrors, and that’s the time to catch her kind, if you want to make anything of them.

“It’s all up with Jim,” said I. “I have caught him as well as Jacko, and you have now no chance of the organ and tambourine life.”

“Oh! I can’t speak to you,” replied the poor girl, “until I get a glass.”

“Not just now, Elizabeth, for then you know you would laugh me off in the old way, and you’re not playing with the monkey now.”

“We have been all miserable since the little devil left, and we want him back again. He kept us from the ‘horrors’, as I told you.”

“A monkey?” said I.

“Ay, even a monkey. Didn’t he make us laugh, and isn’t that all we want when we get into the fit, and think of home and young days, and father and mother, and all that? Curse
on the life we lead; we can’t get quit of these thoughts; and then there’s what’s to become of us when used up?—the Infirmary—and something
yonder
, you
know,” pointing
down
. “Jacko kept all that ugly kind of thing away.”

“So poor, so wretched a creature is woman, when she becomes the slave of vice,” thought I; “not just pleased with a rattle and tickled with a straw, yet finding a relief from
her misery in the unmeaning gambols of this uncouth animal.”

“Well, what if I should give you him back, in the event of the showman not being found?”

“Let’s have him,” she replied; “but I’m to say nothing about Jim in exchange.”

“Don’t expect you, Bess; but I’ll tell you what I want. You confessed that James gave you the monkey, and as it was stolen, I can take you up for resetting, and there’s
one twelve-month for you; then you admitted making the red coat for it out of cloth stolen from a shop in Polmont—there’s other six for you.”

“Oh, Jim told me nothing, and I’m not going to peach.”

“Which you couldn’t do if he told you ‘nothing’, you know.”

“And won’t, and there’s an end on’t.”

“I don’t want you to impeach James,” I persevered. “I only want to know where M’Kenzie is, who was with him at the robbery. Remember the twelve and the six
months.”

“And you won’t meddle with me, and you’ll give us back Jacko?”

“I have said it.”

“Well, M’Kenzie’s a scurvy bilk, and I wish you may find him and the other too, at Mrs F——’s, in the Saltmarket of Glasgow; and now come away with a
dram.”

“Can’t bribe, you know, Bess. Do you know where the stolen goods are?”

“No, except that M’Kenzie has the most of ’em; Jim is swearing at him, and that’s all, and more than enough for me to say; but if it’s all up with Jim and the
organ, it needn’t be all up with me too.”

“No; and I thank you, Bess,” said I. “I will do my best to keep you safe, and”—

“Give us back Jacko,” she added, more cheerful.

“If I can,” replied I.

And so I left Elizabeth, thinking, as I went along, upon the frivolity of the lives of these unfortunate creatures, who, cut off from all virtuous exercises of the mind and all true affections
of the heart, endeavour to get quit of their griefs by means which to others would be only subjects of derision, contempt, and hatred. And this leads me to remark, that I think I have observed in
most unfortunates a
want of mind
. I don’t mean to say that they are devoid of a certain cleverness too, and some of the better of them may talk for a few moments with you pretty
rationally; yet there is absent the mental balance, which enables people to weigh consequences, and keep on the broad end of the steel-yard in spite of temptation. I fear this throws more
responsibility on the other sex, who have less of this infirmity than they are willing to admit.

Having got matters in so hopeful a train, for which I was indebted to pug, who in addition might have peached too, if he and his kind didn’t know that man would set them to work if he knew
they could speak, I wrote a letter to Mr G——r, wherein I told him I had secured James, and then directed him to the house in the Saltmarket, where, by writing to the Glasgow
authorities, he would catch M’Kenzie and the other, as well as probably get a large portion of the property. I proceeded afterwards to get identified the fine satin cravat and the cloth of
the scarlet jacket. I said nothing to Mr G——r of my medium of information; and I remember that he was filled with considerable wonderment how I could discover in Edinburgh, and point
out so exactly, where he could find the burglars; and then I was entitled to my own laugh when I thought how much more his wonder would have been increased, and what a pleasant feeling of the
ludicrous would have been excited, had he been informed of Bess and her favourite, and all the other details of the strange history of the projected organ scheme, wherein the three hopeful parties
were to play their happy
rôles
.

Nor had Bess deceived me. The Glasgow authorities on receiving G——r’s letter went direct to the house in the Saltmarket, and there, to be sure, found their two men, snug in
their new lodgings, and as happy as liquid-fire thrown over callous hearts could make any of God’s creatures who have renounced Him. A difficulty was likely to have occurred in this case, for
the links of evidence were not very distinct. But it ultimately so turned out, that the one of the three, whose name, as I have said, has escaped me, became timid, not being a regular hand, and
turned against those who had been his dear friends in prosperity, and kicked them in the old fashion, when Fortune reversed her wheel upon them. They were tried at Stirling, when Bell and
M’Kenzie were sentenced to seven years’ transportation. Who knows but that James might get his favourite scheme carried out after all, in a land where monkeys are more plentiful than
men, and where there would be no necessity for stealing one to begin business with? I am speaking at random; I don’t know much about the zoology of New South Wales. They have, they say,
wonderful animals there, such as the duck-mole. It is said the country is
raw
yet, having come out of the sea long after the creation, and thus their animals are very imperfect, therefore
it is possible there may be no monkeys—far more clever fellows, I suspect, than the natives. This defect I have done my best to supply, having sent out a good number of the real breed, but
with a different object from those experimentalists who have been endeavouring to send out a breed of those innocent little thieves—the sparrows.

❖

A
certain small critic once took it into his head to laugh at another critic for commencing a learned essay with the words, “We are all born
idiots,” and the reason of the chuckle, though on the wrong side, was evident enough; and yet, methinks, the wise saying might have had a tail, to the effect, “and many of us live and
die idiots.” At least I know that I have met many imbeciles,—ay, even of that absolute kind who will not be taught that pain is pain, so that I am obliged to differ with Solomon when he
says that “experience teacheth fools.” How many beacon flashes, with red streaks in them, have I not thrown out, amidst the darkness of crime, to keep my children off the quicksands and
the shelving rocks, and the shipwrecks have been as numerous as ever! Have I not proved the Happy Land to be a hell, resounding with oaths, screams, and hysterical ravings, not the songs of angels,
and yet case after case proved the truth of the wise saying?

Another flash of the beacon—with perhaps redder strcaks—something of the old story, yet with a difference. On the second flat of the Happy Land there lived for some considerable
time, in 1848, two young women, Isabella Marshall and Margaret Tait. Their den was of the common order,—the room and the hiding-hole, the bed, the fir-table, and two chairs, the teapot and
cups, two or three broken plates, the bottle and glass, and so forth,—squalor everywhere, like the green mould which springs up the more when the sun of domestic comfort flies away at the
sight of crime. Yes, the green mould on the once fair living temples; for let them wash, and scrub, and “scent up” as they pleased, and deck out in the stolen or thrice-redeemed finery,
the snare of uncircumcised eyes and sensual hearts was only the covering of impurity. Yet how all this goes on and thrives. One might be tempted to say, that the lovers of “the
beautiful”(?) are something like the gobemouches, who admire a little tang or
haut gout
. Look you, I use the
adjective
here, just with the proper amount of derision; for
although the fairer of the two conjunct tenants of the den, Bella, was admired, no one could miss the Cain mark of the class. Don’t you know it? Coarse snobs, with cassowary gizzards, might
think they saw delicacy of skin and colour; while others, with a modicum of true refinement, would try to find another name—not easy, I confess—perhaps livid sickliness, reminding one
of a decayed peony of the pale variety. Don’t let us mention the faded lily. But what matters it, when the thing is patent to all but those who will not be taught by experience, just because
there is nothing inside to respond to the touch of common sense. Yet withal there is something curious about Nature’s manoeuvres, in fencing as she does to conceal the cancer-spots on her
favourites, just as if she were so fond of her few beauties that she will cling to them to the last, supporting their charms even amidst the blight of vice. Of Margaret I must speak
otherwise,—a strong, burly wench, with little to attract, but capital hands at a grip, or what is not exactly the same, a gripe, and a tilt where ferocity stands against self-preservation.
The two were very well mated; for while the one could allure, the other could secure.

But as the den was incomplete without the hiding-hole, so neither was this copartnership of Marshall & Co. perfect without the indispensable “bully”; for though Margaret could do
wonders in her way, she could derive little aid from the delicate Isabella. So James Kidd, a stout young fellow, the Fancy of both, who apportioned his protection and favour between them according
as they supplied him with money, was the chosen partner,—a fellow who, in such a connexion and conspiracy, had found an attraction which tore him from his home and his mother, whose heart he
had broken. Nor is it easy otherwise to form a proper estimate of this species of ruffian, pouncing from a hole on a man whose powers of resistance he does not know. He must close in a struggle,
which, though never intended to be deadly on his part, may become so, by a resistance or counter attack more powerful than his own. All this he must do in the very heart of a populous city, and in
a large house of many flats, where he can count upon no more than the hush of other fiends, who may screen, though they will take no hand in another’s business. It is in such a scene, enacted
in a close room, sometimes with the light extinguished, and the actors doing their work in the dark, that we can form an adequate idea of the true
furor
of robbery. Even a listener at the
door would hear only the bodily contortions—the deep breathing—the muttered vengeance—all a deep bass to the stifled treble of a woman’s passion grasping at gold. I have
known of two such conflicts going on in this “Happy Land” at the same moment,—the great scenes being illustrated the while by orgies in the other dens, the laughter from which
drowned the dull sounds of the conflicts.

In the particular conspiracy I am now to relate, the scheme of attack was different from what was usually followed, as you will understand when I introduce Mr —— of ——;
and you have only at present to keep in mind the general way of “doing” the victims:-the spring-out of the concealed bully—the seizure of his object—the assistant women
rifling and robbing in the still flickering light—the sudden disappearance of the principal actor, which aids the blasphemous oaths of the subordinates that they know nothing of him, while it
leaves the conversational winding-up to those whose conversational powers are so seldom at fault.

On a certain night of the cold month of December, the delicate Isabella, dressed in the usual mackerel-bait, only a little subdued by the soft muff and boa, so suggestive of softness and
delicacy in the wearer, went out on her mission of love, leaving Kidd and Margaret to await the bringing in of the prey. Nor was it long before she encountered the sympathetic Mr ——
from Cumberland, who could make pleasure wait on business—just as a pretty handmaiden who comes and goes, and goes and comes. Oh yes, seldom coy, that faithful helpmate of anxious
hearts—always everywhere and yet nowhere, turning her face and disappearing to return again. Then why shouldn’t sympathy for a tender creature, exposed to a December chill, help the
sympathy due to himself? He would not prey on that tenderness—only purchase a little pleasure with money that would nurse the seller in that land of bliss, where Justice would see to a fair
bargain, Love filling the scales with hearts. So Mr —— would go with Isabella; all in the old way—respectable house—matronly mistress. Why, it would even be a duty to warm
with a glass of generous spirits so gentle a creature. Up the North Bridge, and down the High Street—a sudden stand at the foot of the stair of the Happy Land. Mr —— did not think
there was much promise of pleasure in that dark old region of sin, and he would be off and leave her who required so much sympathy from hard-hearted man. But Mr —— was a man of feeling
notwithstanding, and how could he resist an appeal to his heart by one who asked no more than his arm up the star? Nor did he. With Isabella receiving the proffered support, he mounted the stair.
They entered the dingy lobby, and came to a door. The gentle knock, not to disturb the decent woman, and Margaret,

opened, but not until Kidd had got into the closet.

Whether it was that our gentleman had heard some noise of a retreat, or that he had had his prior doubts confirmed by the smoky appearance of the den, I cannot tell, but certain it is that the
startled lover stopped again.

“No, I have seen enough,” he cried, and was retreating, when Margaret, laying hold of him, pulled him in by main force.