Part 9

Such was the subject of my meditation, as the muttering and seemingly subterraneous thunder boomed and quavered behind me. At last, one broad and whizzing flash passed over, around, beneath, and I could almost imagine, _through_ me. The clap followed instantly, and, by its deafening knell, drove me head foremost into the heathy moss. Had the earth now opened (as to Curtius of old) before me, I should certainly have dashed into the crater, in order to escape from that explosive omnipotence which seemed to overtake me. Peal after peal pitched, with a rending and tearing sound, upon the drum of my ear and the parapet of my brain; whilst the mist and the darkness were kindled up around me into an open glow. I could hear a strange rush upon the mountain, and along the glen, as if the Solway had overleaped all bounds, and was careering some thousand feet abreast over Criffel and Queenberry. Down it came at last, in a swirl and a roar, as if rocks and cairns and heath were commingled in its sweep. This terrible blast was only the immediate precursor of a hail-storm, which, descending at first in separate and distinct pieces, as if the powers of darkness and uproar had been pitching marbles, came on at last with a rush, as if Satan himself had been dumriddling the elements. The water in the moss-hag rose up, and boiled and sputtered in the face of heaven, and a rock, underneath the hollow corner of which I had now crept on hands and knees, rattled all over, as if assailed by musketry. I lay now altogether invisible to mortal eye, amidst the mighty movements of the elements--a thing of nought, endeavouring to crawl into nonentity--a tiny percipient amidst the blind urgency of nature. I lay in all the prostration of a bruised and subdued spirit, praying fervently and loudly unto God that He might be pleased to cover me with his hand till his wrath was overpast. And, to my persuasion at the time, my prayers were not altogether insufficient: the storm softened, rain succeeded hail, a pause followed the hurricane, and the thunder's voice had already travelled away over the brow of the onward mountain.

Whilst I was debating with myself whether it were safer, now that the night had fairly closed in upon the pathless moor, to remain all night in my present position, or to attempt once more my return home, I heard, all of a sudden, the sound of human voices, which the violence of the storm had prevented me from sooner perceiving. I scarcely knew whether I was more alarmed or comforted by this discovery. From my previous state of agitation, combined with my early and rooted belief in all manner of supernaturals, I was strongly disposed to terror; but the accents were so manifestly human, that, in spite of my apprehensions, they tended to cheer me. As I continued, therefore, to listen with mouth and ears, the voices became louder and louder, and more numerous, mixed and commingled as they appeared at last to be with the tread and the plash of horses' feet. These demonstrations of an approaching cavalcade naturally called upon me to narrow, as much and as speedily as possible, my circumference; in other words, to creep, as it were, into my shell, by occupying the farthest extremity of the recess, to which I betook myself at first for shelter, and now for concealment. There I lay like a limpet stuck to the rock, against which I could feel my heart beat with accelerated rapidity. In this situation I could distinguish voices and expressions, and ultimately unravel the import of a conversation interlarded with oaths and similar ornamental flourishes. There was a proposal to halt, alight, and refresh in this sequestered situation. Such a proposal, as may readily be supposed, was to me anything but agreeable. Here was I, according to my reckoning, surrounded by a band of robbers, and liable every instant to detection. Firearms were talked of, and preparations, offensive and defensive, were proposed. I could distinctly smell gunpowder. In the meantime, a fire was struck up at no great distance, under the glare of which I could distinguish horses heavily panniered, and strange-looking countenances, congregating within fifty paces of my retreat. The shadow of the intervening corner of the rock covered me, otherwise immediate detection would have been inevitable. The thunder and lightnings with all their terrors were nothing to this. In the one case, I was placed at the immediate disposal of a merciful, as well as a mighty Being; but at present I ran every risk of falling into the hands of those whose counsels I had overheard, and whose tender mercies were only cruelty. As I lay--rod, basket, and fish crumpled up into a corner of contracted dimensions--all ear, however, and eye towards the light--I could mark the shadows of several individuals who were manifestly engaged in the peaceful and ordinary process of eating and drinking; hands, arms, and flagons projected in lengthened obscurity over the mass, and intimated, by the rapidity and character of their movements, that jaws were likewise in motion. The long pull, with the accompanying _smack_, were likewise audible; and it was manifest that the repast was not more substantial than the beverage was exhilarating. "Word follows word, from question answer flows." Dangers and contingencies--which, while the flame was kindling and the flagon was filling, seemed to agitate and interest all--were now talked of as bugbears; and oaths of heavy and horrifying defiance were hurled into the ear of night, with many concomitant expressions of security and self-reliance. The night, though dark, had now become still and warm; and the ground which they occupied, like my own retreat, had been partially protected from the hail and the rain by the projecting rock. The stunted roots of burnt heath, or "brins," served them plentifully for fuel; and altogether their situation was not so uncomfortable as might have been expected. Still, however, their character, employment, and conversation appeared to me a fearful mystery. One thing, however, was evident, that they conceived themselves as engaged in some illegal transactions. Their whole revel was tainted with treason and insubordination: kings and rulers were disposed of with little ceremony; and excise officers, in particular, were visited with anathemas not to be mentioned. At this critical moment, when the whole party seemed verging towards downright intoxication, a pistol bullet burst itself to atoms on the projecting corner of the rock; and the report which accompanied this demonstration was followed up by oaths of challenge and imprecation. The fire went out as if by magic, and an immediate rush to arms, accompanied by shots and clashing of lethal weapons, indicated a struggle for life.

"Stand and surrender, you smuggling scoundrels! or by all that is sacred, not one of you shall quit this spot in life!"

This salutation was answered by a renewed discharge of musketry; and the darkness, which was relieved by the momentary flash, became instantly more impenetrable than ever. Men evidently pursued men, and horses were held by the bridle, or driven into speed as circumstances permitted. How it happened that I neither screamed, fainted, nor died outright, I am yet at a loss to determine. The darkness, however, was my covering; and even amidst the unknown horrors of the onset, I felt in some degree assured by the extinction of the fire. But this assurance was not of long continuance: the assailing party had evidently taken possession of the field; and, after a few questions of mutual recognition and congratulation, proceeded to secure their booty, which consisted of one horse, with a considerable assortment of barrels and panniers. This was done under the light of the rekindled fire, around which a repetition of the former festivities was immediately commenced. The fire, however, now flared full in my face, and led to my immediate detection. I was summoned to come forth, with the muzzle of a pistol placed within a few inches of my ear--an injunction which I was by no means prepared to resist. I rolled immediately outwards from under the rock, displaying my basket and rod, and screaming all the while heartily for mercy. At this critical moment a horse was heard to approach, and a challenge was immediately sent through the darkness,--every musket was levelled in the direction of the apprehended danger,--when a voice, to which I was by no means a stranger, immediately restored matters to their former bearing.

"Now, what is the meaning o' a' this, my lads? And how come the king's servants to be sae ill lodged at this time o' night? He must be a shabby landlord that has naething better than the bare heath and the hard rock to accommodate his guests wi'."

"Oh, Fairly, my old man of the Covenant," vociferated the leader of the party, "how come you to be keeping company with the whaup and the curlew at this time o' night? But a drink is shorter than a tale; fling the bridle owre the grey yad's shoulders, an' ca' her to the bent, till we mak ourselves better acquainted with this little natty gentleman, whom we have so opportunely encountered on the moor"--displaying, at the same time, a keg or small flask of liquor referred to, and shaking it joyously till it clunked again.

In an instant Fairly was stationed by the side of the fire, with a can of Martin's brandy in his hands, and an expression of exceeding surprise on his countenance as he perceived my mother's son in full length exhibited before him. I did not, however, use the ceremony of a formal recognition; but, rushing on his person, I clung to it with all the convulsive desperation of a person drowning. Matters were now adjusted by mutual recognitions and explanations; and I learned that I had been the unconscious spectator of a scuffle betwixt the "king's officers" and a "band of smugglers;" and that Fairly, who had been preaching and baptizing that day at Burnfoot, and was on his return towards Durrisdeer (where he was next day to officiate), had heard and been attracted to the spot by the firing. In these times to which I refer, the Isle of Man formed a depot for illegal traffic. Tea, brandy, and tobacco, in particular, found their way from the Calf of Man to the Rinns of Galloway, Richmaden, and the mouth of the Solway. From the latter depot the said articles were smuggled, during night marches, into the interior, through such byways and mountain passes as were unfrequented or inaccessible. After suitable libations had been made, I was mounted betwixt a couple of panniers, and soon found myself in my own bed, some time before

"That hour o' night's black arch the keystane!"

THE DETECTIVE'S TALE.

THE CHANCE QUESTION.

It is not long since the cleverest of these strangely constituted men called detectives [_entre nous_ myself] went up to his superintendent with a very rueful face, and told him that all his energies were vain in discovering a clue to an extensive robbery of plate which had occurred in ---- Street some short time before.

"I confess myself fairly baffled," he said; and could say no more.

"With that singular foxhound organ of yours?" replied his superior. "The herring must have been well smoked."

"At the devil's own fire of pitch and brimstone," said the detective. "But the worst is, I have had no trail to be taken off. I never was so disconcerted before. Generally some object to point direction, if even only a dead crow or smothered sheep; but here, not even that."

"No trace of P---- or any of the English gang?"

"None; all beyond the bounds, or up chimneys, or down in cellars, or covered up in coal-bunkers. I am beginning to think the job to be of home manufacture."

"Generally a clumsy affair; and therefore very easy for a man of your parts. What reason have you?"

"Absolutely none."

"That is, I fancy," said the superintendent, "the thousand pounds of good silver, watches, and rings, are absolutely gone."

"You know my conditions," said the officer: "give me the thing stolen, and I will find to a living certainty the man who stole it; or give me the man who stole it, and I will find you to a dead certainty the thing stolen. But it's a deuced unfortunate thing that a man can't get even a sniff."

"Yes, especially when, as in your case, all his soul is in his nose."

"And with such a reward!" continued the chagrined officer; "scarcely anything so liberal has been offered in my time; but, after all, the reward is nothing--it is the honour of the force and one's character. It is well up for the night anyhow, and I rather think altogether, unless some flash come by telegraph."

"You have no other place you can go to now?" said the superintendent musingly, and not altogether satisfied.

"None," replied the officer resolutely. "I have been out of bed for ten nights--every den scoured, and every 'soup-kitchen'[B] visited, every swell watched and dogged, and every trull searched; I can do no more. It is now eleven, my eyes will hardly hold open, and I request to be allowed to go and rest for the present."

"As you like," replied the superintendent. "We are neither omniscient nor omnipotent."

"The people who get robbed think us both," said the officer; and taking his hat, left the office, and began to trudge slowly down the street. The orderly people had mostly retired to their homes. The midnight ghouls from the deep wynds and closes were beginning to form their gossiping clusters; the perambulators had begun their courses; and fast youths from the precincts of the College or the New Town were resuming their search for sprees, or determined to make them. There were among them many clients of our officer, whom he knew, and had hopes of at some future day; but now he surveyed them with the eye of one whose occupation for the time was gone. His sadness was of the colour of Jacques', but there was a difference: the one wove out of his melancholy golden verses in the forest of Arden; our hero could not draw out of his even silver plate in the dens of Edinburgh. He had come to the Tron Kirk, and hesitated whether, after all, he should renounce his hunt for the night--true to the peculiarity of this species of men, whose game are wretched and wicked beings, always less or more between them and the wind's eye, and therefore always stimulating to pursuit; but again he resolved upon home, or, rather, his heavy eyes and worn-out spirits resolved him, in spite of himself, and he turned south, in which direction his residence was. So on he trudged till he came about the middle part of the street called the South Bridge, when he heard pattering behind him the feet of a woman. She came up to him, and passed him, or rather was in the act of passing him, when, from something no better than a desire to stimulate activity, or rather to free himself from the conviction that he was utterly and entirely defeated, he turned round to the girl, whom he saw in an instant was a street-walker, and threw carelessly a question at her.

"Where are you going?"

"Home," was the reply.

"Where do you live?"

"In Simon Square."

Here he was at first inclined to make a stop, having put the questions more as common routine than with any defined intention; but just as the girl came opposite to a lamp-post, and was on the eve of outstripping him, he said,

"Oh, by-the-bye, do you know any one thereabouts, or anywhere else, who mends rings?"

"Yes."

"Who is it?"

"Abram."

"What more?"

"I don't know his other name; we just call him Abram, and sometimes Jew Abram."

"Did you ever get anything mended by him?"

"No; but I bought a ring from him once."

"And what did you do with it?"

"I have it on my finger," she replied.

"Will you let me see it?" he continued.

"Oh yes."

And as they came forward to another lamp-post, he was shown the ring. He examined it carefully, taking from his waistcoat another, and comparing the two--"Won't do."

"How long is it since you made this purchase?"

"About ten days ago."

"And what did you pay for it?"

"Three and sixpence."

By this time they had got opposite the square where the girl lived. She crossed, and he followed, in the meantime asking her name.

"There is Abram's house," she said; "there's light in the window."

And the officer, standing a little to see where she went, now began to examine the outside of Abram's premises. A chink in the shutters showed him a part of the person of some one inside, whom he conjectured to be Abram sitting at his work. He opened the door, and it was as he thought. An old man was sitting at a bench, with a pair of nippers in his hand, peering into some small object.

"Can you mend that?" said the officer abruptly, and, without a word of prelocution, pressing into his hands a ring.

"Anything," was the prompt reply.

But no sooner had the ring come under the glance of his far-ben eye--

"Yes--ah! ye-es--well--no--no."

And the peering eye came, as it were, forward out of its recess, and scanned the face of the officer, who, on the other hand, was busy watching every turn of the Jew's features.

"No; I cannot mend that."

"Why? You said you could mend anything."

"Ye-es, anything; but not that."

"No matter--no harm in asking," replied the officer, as he looked round the apartment, and fixed his eye on the back wall, where, in utter opposition to all convenience, let alone taste, and even to the exclusion of required space, there were battered two or three coarse engravings.

"Good night!"

"Goo-ood night!"

"Now what, in the name of decoration, are these prints hung up on that wall for?" asked the officer of himself, without making any question of the import of the Jew's look, and his yes and no. He was now standing in the middle of the square, and, turning round, he saw the light put out. Another thought struck him, but whatever it was, it was the cause of a laugh that took hold of him, even in the grasp of his anxiety; yea, he laughed, for a detective, greatly more heartily than could be authorized by anything I have recorded.

"Why, the lower print is absolutely the old Jewish subject of the cup in the sack," he muttered, and laughed again. "Was ever detective so favoured?--a representation of concealed treasure on the very wall where that treasure is! Were the brethren fools enough to put the representation of a cup on Benjamin's sack?"

"Robertson!" he called to one of his men, whom, by the light at the street-end of the entry, he saw passing, "send two men here upon the instant."

"Yes, sir."

And then he began to examine more thoroughly the premises, to ascertain whether there were any exit-openings besides the door and window. There were none. He had a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes to wait, and five of these had not passed before he observed some one go up and tap at Abram's door. A question, though he did not hear it, must have been put by the Jew, for an answer, in a low voice, responded,

"Slabberdash!"

"The crack name of that fellow Clinch, whom I've been after for a week," said the officer to himself, as he kept in the shadow of a cellar which jutted out from the other houses.

The Jew had again answered, for the visitor repeated to himself, as if in fear and surprise, "Red-light," and, looking cautiously about him, made off.

"It is not my cue to follow," muttered the detective; "but I will do next best."

And hurrying out of the mouth of the entry at the heels of the visitor, he caught the policeman on the Nicolson Street beat almost immediately.

"Track that fellow," he said; "there--there, you see him--'tis Slabberdash; do not leave him or the front of his den till sunrise. I'll get a man for your beat."

"Yes, sir," replied the policeman, adroitly blowing out his bull's-eye and making off at a canter.

The officer returned to his post, and within the time the two assistants arrived.

"Go you, Reid, to the office, and send a man to supply Nicolson Street beat till Ogilvy return; he's on commission; come back instantly."

The man obeyed with alacrity.

"And now, Jones, you and your neighbour take charge of that door--keep seeing it without it seeing; you understand? Keep watch; and if any one approach, scan him for Slabberdash, but take care he doesn't see you. I will relieve you at shutters-down in the morning; meanwhile, I'm at home for report or exigency."

"I comprehend," replied the man, "and will be careful."

The officer took for home, weary and drowsy, though a little awakened by the events of one half-hour. There was sight of game, as well as scent. The Jew's look by itself was not much, yet greatly more to the eye of a detective than even an expert physiognomist could imagine. The picture-plastered wall was more; the cup in the sack was merely an enlivening joke; but Slabberdash was no joke, as many a douce burgher in Edinburgh knew to his cost. The fellow was a match for the father of cheats and lies himself; and therefore it could be no dishonour to our clever detective that hitherto he had had no chance with him, any more than if he had been James Maccoul, or the great Mahoun.

Meanwhile, the other watch having arrived, the two kept up their surveillance; nor would they be without something to report to their officer, were it nothing more than that little Abram--for he was very diminutive--about one in the morning rather surprised one of the guard, who was incautiously too near the house, by slowly opening the door, and looking out with an inquiring eye, in his shirt; and upon getting a glimpse of the dark figure of the policeman, saying, as if to himself, though intended for the said dark figure, whoever it might be,

"I vash wondering if it vash moonlight."

And, shutting the door hurriedly, he disappeared. About an hour afterwards, a tall female figure, coming up the entry from North Richmond Street, made a full stop, at about three yards from Abram's door, and then darted off, but not before one of the guard had seen enough, as he thought, to enable him to swear that it was Slabberdash's companion, a woman known by the slang name of Four-toed Mary, once one of the most dashing and beautiful of the local street-sirens. About an hour after that the two guards forgathered to compare notes.

"The devil is surely in that little man," said the one who had heard the soliloquy about the moon; "for, whether or not he wanted light outside or in to drive away the shadows of his conscience, he served his purpose a few minutes since by lighting his lamp. I saw the light through the chinks, and venturing to listen, heard noises as of working. He is labouring at something, if not sweating."

"Perhaps _melting_," said the other, with a laugh.

"But here comes our officer; there is never rest for that man when there's a bird on the moor or a fox in the covert."

The truth was, as the man said, the detective had gone home to sleep; but no sooner had he lain down than the little traces he had discovered began to excite his imagination, and that faculty, so suggestive in his class, getting inflamed, developed so many images in the camera of his mind, that he soon found sleep an impossibility, and he was now there to know whether anything further had transpired. The men made their report, and he soon saw there was something more than ordinary in Abram's curiosity about the moon, and still more in the coincidence of the visits of Slabberdash and Four-toes. He had a theory, too, about the working, though it did not admit the melting. He knew better what to augur. But he had a fault to find, and he was not slow to find it.