McLevy (20 page)

“Has he given you a watch?” said I, in the expectation of profiting by what I considered to be a breaking down.

“No,” she replied, “I have never had ony o’ his secrets, nor for a lang time has he been near me, except when he wanted meat. His wild ways are best kenned to
himsel’, but I fear women and drink have been his ruin.”

“Rise, James,” said I, “and give me the watch you robbed the gentleman of last night in the Happy Land.”

“I deny it,” replied the incorrigible rogue, as he rose slowly, cursing between his teeth.

I searched the house, but the watch was never recovered. The three were brought to the High Court. It was a difficult case, in consequence of the darkness of the scene, which prevented
recognition of Kidd; but a strange circumstance supplied the want. Mr —— could swear that Kidd had a large hard wart upon the right hand—the rough pressure of which in his neck
had pained him so as to leave an impression on his mind. The wart was found still upon the thumb. Then the watch-key served its purpose, and it was found that Kidd was the daily associate of the
women. They were each transported for fourteen years.

The Mustard-Blister

❖

I
believe that if any one were to look back upon his past life for the purpose of tracing out the most curious parts of it, he would find that they
originated in the work of my old lady, Chance, and which is nothing more than something occurring just at the moment when it is unlooked for, but, being taken advantage of, turns out to be
important. The great secret is to be able to seize the advantage, and this, as concerns my kind of work, lies in something like natural reasoning. If there’s anything out of the ordinary
fitness of things, I begin to try to find out why it should be so. Books and learning don’t help a man here. I have sometimes thought they rather work against him, and hence it is that we
find so many illiterate people rise up to be great and wealthy. Ay, but they can also be clever in a bad way; so with our thieves; but I have this consolation, that if their mother-wit has done a
great deal for them, mine has also to their cost done something for me. I will give you a case.

In 1845, there were almost daily occurring cases of robbery from larders in the New Town, and, what was more extraordinary, the accounts all tallied as to the fact that the thieves were
exceedingly dainty. It was only the fine pieces of meat that would please them—large joints and legs of mutton—nor did they seem to care for cold meat, in some instances leaving it, as
if they were above that kind of food. Of course, I had my ordinary professional reasons for being active in endeavouring to lay hold of these burglars, who seemed to be so envious of the good
things of their neighbours, but I confess to the weakness of having had a little of that same feeling in regard to them. I was not easy under the notion that any of my children should be thus
living at hack and manger in so very much more luxurious a manner than myself, and felt a great desire to show them the difference between these hot joints and the fare I am in the habit of
providing for them.

But how was I to get hold of them? Who could trace a leg of mutton after it was cut down and eaten? No wee pawns for joints or beefsteaks, and then the omnivorous gentry are generally so hungry
that they could not afford, however epicurean, to lay past, to get tender and high-flavoured, a gigot of wether mutton or piece of venison. Then as to catching red-hand, that was out of the
question, for upon inquiry it was found that the thieves never tried a larder a second time. I could, in short, make no discovery, and I was more uncomfortable under my want of success than I
generally am, insomuch that my cooks were not only angry at losing their joints, but driven into a passion at the gentry’s dinners being spolit by the disappearance on the previous night of
some “old leg” which had been kept a fortnight for the very occasion, and which could not be supplied by the butcher. Their honour was at stake, and we all know what the honour of a
cuisinière
amounts to when the same is calculated by the dripping lips of a
gobemouche
. I have caught “old legs,” which, like Madeira, had been sent over the sea to
improve, and have found them improved in the contrary way, but here my “old legs” defied me.

I had given up hope, and my angry cooks were left to look better after the joints that were to be used in future, when one night I happened to go into the shop of Mr M’Dougal at the foot
of the High Street. There were several people in the shop, and I stood back, not to avoid the gaze of Mrs Biddy Riddel of the Fountain Close, (her maiden name was O’Neil), who didn’t
look for me, and didn’t see me, for, in truth, I was after no game that evening, but merely to avoid interfering with the customers. Now was Biddy’s turn to be served.

“Half an ounce ov good tay—an ounce ov sugar—and an ounce ov raal Durham musthard,” said she.

The purchase struck me as being singular, and I’m sure the grocer was of the same opinion. I was perfectly aware that she was of the class of the half-ounce-of-tea-and-glass-of-whisky
buyers, and if she had asked the whisky I would have considered the purchase as quite in the ordinary way, but the “raal Durham” was quite another thing, and I could account for it
nohow.

I saw that the grocer had looked at Biddy when she asked the mustard, just as if he felt inclined to ask what she was to do with so large a quantity, nay, any quantity, however small, but he
proceeded without saying a word to tie up the tea and the sugar, then, coming to the third article,

“Did you say an ounce of mustard, Mrs Riddel?”

“Ay, raal Durham.”

“Why, that will go a far way with you,” said Mr M’Dougal, as he looked over to me, and laughed—a kind of interference with the rights of trade that Biddy did not seem to
relish.

“Wid me?” she said; “and why wid me? Shure, couldn’t I buy a pound ov it if I chose?”

“And most happy would I be to sell it to you,” was the reply.

“Ay, and I may need a pound ov it too,” she continued, “if it doesn’t plase the Lord to be kinder to me; for hasn’t Willie caught a terrible cowld, and amn’t
I to put a blisther on his throat this blissid night?”

“Ah, that’s another thing, Mrs Riddel. I’m sorry for William. His trade of chimney-sweeping takes him early out in the cold mornings.”

“And shure it does,” she replied; “but the never a bit less shame to ye to think I was to ate musthard like honey and the devil a bit ov salt mate to take wid it.”

“I am sorry for the mistake,” said the grocer, as he rolled up the small packet, and Biddy laid down the pence.

“And so you may,” added she, not altogether reconciled; “and, what’s more, have I not as good a right to a piece of salt bacon as the gintry?”

And not contented yet without the parting salute—

“And ye don’t know yet that we kept pigs at home, at Ballynagh; ay, an’ they more than paid the rint; and, what’s more, bedad, we didn’t need to tie the bit ov
bacon to the ind ov the string and swallow it, and thin pull it out agin.”

“I believe it, Mrs Riddel,” said the grocer. And then the last words came—

“And what’s more, it wasn’t straiked wid a hunger and a burst, like your gintry’s. Just purty white and red where it should be; and we had musthard, too, galore, when we
wanted it. Shure, and I’ve settled your penn’orth, anyhow.”

And so she had; for as she went grandly away, carrying in her hand her half-ounce of tea, and in her head the honour of Ballynagh, Mr M’Dougal looked as if he had committed an error in
joking as he had done on the wants of the poor.

“You’ve raised the lady’s dander,” said I.

“Which I shouldn’t have done,” said he, “for her penny is as good to me as another’s; and then she needs the mustard for the
outside
of her son’s
throat, not the
in
.”

To which sentiment I agreed, even with a little sympathy for the feelings of a mother, whose penny for a blister for her son’s throat was just the tribute which she could ill spare paid
from a mother’s affection to old Æsculapius. I confess to having been somewhat amused by Biddy’s Irish vindication of the rights of her family, but having been merely amused, the
interlude passed out of my mind—so completely so, that by the next morning I was thinking of something very different from Mrs Riddel and her invalid son, Willie, with the sore throat.

Next day I was passing the mouth of the Fountain Close, and whom did I see standing there, with a pipe in his mouth, but Bill himself, arrayed in his suit of black, with face of the same,
indicating that he had been at work in the morning? He was quite well known to me, and from a circumstance which will appear ludicrous. I had occasion at one time to separate him from a baker with
whom he had quarrelled, and with whom, also, he had fought so long that the two had so mixed colours that you couldn’t have told which was the man of the oven or the man of the chimney; but
the truth is, that he had more to answer for than thrashing a baker, for he was an old offender in another way, where he took without giving something more than dust. Of course it was a mystery to
me how he had so soon recovered from his sore throat, and the effects of the “raal Durham.”

“Well, Bill, how’s your throat, lad?” said I, going up to him.

“My throat?” replied he; “nothing’s wrong with it—never had a sore throat in my life.”

“Except once,” said I.

“When?”

“When I took you by it rather roughly,” said I.

“Unpleasant recollection,” said the rogue. “Don’t wish it mentioned. Steady now,—nothing but lum-sweeping and small pay.”

“And no mustard-poultice last night?”

“Mustard-poultice? Strange question! never had a mustard-poultice in my life.”

“Quite sure? let me see your throat.”

“More sure than I am that you’re not gibing a poor fellow,” replied he, pulling down his neckcloth. “I don’t belong to you now, so be off unless you want me to
sweep your vent for sixpence—cheap, as things go, and I’ll leave you the soot to hide your shame for what you did to me yon time.”

Well, I took the joke, and really I had no reason in the world for doubting his word as to either the throat or the blister, but I confess I was startled, and couldn’t account for the
discrepancy between the story of the lady of Ballynagh and that of her son. Things were out of their natural fitness; and there was some explanation required to bring them into conformity with it
and themselves. What that explanatory thing was I couldn’t tell, and so I walked into the grocer’s.

“Why,” said I, “Biddy Riddel’s black darling has no sore throat, after all, he is standing at the close-head quite well, with his throat, which I have seen, as black as
soot.

“Strange enough,” said he.

“Have you sold her any ham of late?’ said I, after musing a little.

“Too poor for that,” he replied; “all goes for whisky, and Biddy’s half-ounces of tea, with, no doubt, a bit of coarse meat occasionally, to which an ounce of Durham
would, of course, be out of the question.”

“Did she ever buy from you any mustard before?” I inquired again.

“Why, now when I recollect, yes,” replied he. “About a week ago she had an ounce. I had really forgotten that, when last night I touched her on a tender part.”

With my additional information I left the shop, meditating as I went up the High Street on the strangeness of the affair, small though it was—for a little animal is just as curious in its
organization as a big one, and I’ve heard of some great man who lost his eyesight by peering too closely into these small articles of nature’s workmanship. I didn’t intend to lose
mine, and yet I couldn’t give over thinking, though it is just as sure as death that I saw no connexion between what I had heard noticed and the larder affair, neither then nor afterwards,
during the day. Besides, another business took the subject out of my head, so that I thought no more of it.

Next morning, as I was proceeding to the Office, my attention was again called to the mystery of the mustard-blister, by encountering the lady of Ballynagh carrying a stoup of water from the
Fountain Well, and I couldn’t resist a few words as I passed.

“Well, Mrs Riddel,” said I, with true official gravity, “how is your darling’s throat after the blister?”

“And it’s you that has the impidence to ask it?” replied she; “are you a docthor?”

“Yes, I sometimes try to mend people when they’re
bad
.”

“To kill them, you mane, and the heart ov many a dacent widdow besides,” was the reply.

“But I didn’t make Bill’s throat sore this time.”

“No more ye did; but small thanks to ye, for wouldn’t ye hang him, if yez could? and, shure, to hang a man wid the proud flesh in his throat would be a mighty plaisant thinng to the
likes ov ye; and didn’t I look down it wid me own eyes?”

“But Bill says he never had a sore throat in his life.”

“And isn’t that becase he’s so bowld a boy?” replied she. “He never complains, becase he knows it would hurt me; but is that any raison I shouldn’t blisther
him when he’s ill? And didn’t I know he was ill when he could only spake like a choking dog, and couldn’t for the life ov him take a cup of tay or ate a bit ov bread?”

And taking up her pitcher, she hurried away, leaving me as much in the dark as ever on this great subject, destined to become so much greater before even that day was done, but not by any
exertions of mine, for as yet I could see nothing in it beyond the fact that there was some incident required to be known to bring out the fitness of things. Nor was it long before I got
satisfaction. The day was a strolling one with me, more a look-out for “old legs” than a pursuit after new ones, and for some reason which I don’t now recollect, I was in Hanover
Street, along which I had got (it was now dark) a short way when I observed a sweep coming along with a jolly leg of mutton in his hand. We are sometimes blamed for being somewhat curious in our
inquiries into the nature of carried parcels, but here there was so much of the real unfitness of things that I might, I though, be justified in my curiosity—all the more, too, when I
discovered that the proprietor or carrier was my friend of the sore throat.