McLevy (11 page)

On arriving at the Office, which we did in the midst of a dense crowd, among whom the word “murder” sped from mouth to mouth, making open lips and wide staring eyes, I led him in.
The moment he entered, he flung himself on a seat, and covering his eyes with his hands sent forth gurgling sounds, as if his chest were convulsed—rolling meanwhile from side to side,
striking his head on the back of the seat, and still the words, “James, James, my old friend—O God! what is this I have brought upon me?”

“Is Imrie dead?” said I, watching him narrowly.

“Dead!” he cried, with a kind of wild satire, even light as a madman’s laugh; “up to the heft in his bowels.”

“Was it connected with the dream, William?” I said again; “why, it was James should have stabbed you.”

“The dream,” he ejaculated, as if his spirit had retired back into his heart; “the dream—ay, the dream. It was that—it was that.”

“How could that be?” I said again, for I was in a difficulty.

“His face, the very face he had when, in my dream, he plunged my own knife in me, has haunted me ever since. I told you that morning it was with me. I could not get rid of it, and when I
saw him to-night sitting by me, I observed the same scowl. I thought he was going to seize my knife and stab me. I thought I would prevent him by being before him, and plunged the knife into his
body.”

“Terrible delusion,” said I. “Imrie, as I told you, couldn’t have hurt a fly.”

“Too late, too late,” he groaned. “I know it now, and, what is worst of all, I’m not mad; I feel I am not, and I must be hanged. Nothing else will satisfy my mind—I
have said it. If not, I will destroy myself—lend me my knife.”

“No, no,” said I, “no murders here; but perhaps James is not dead—he may recover.”

“Why do you say that?” he cried, as he slipt off the chair, and took me by the knees; “who knows that? has any one seen him to tell you? I would give the world and my existence
to know that he has got one remnant of life in him;” and then he added, as his head fell upon his chest, “Alas! it is impossible. I took too good care of that. It would have done for
one of his master’s oxen.”

“Imrie’s not dead,” said a constable, as he came forward “they’ve taken him to the Infirmary.”

I have seen a criminal with his whole soul in his ear as the jury took their seats, and seen his eye after the transference of his spirit from the one organ to the other, as he heard the words
“Not guilty”. So appeared Wright. He rose up, and again seating himself, while his eye was still fixed on the bearer of good news, he held up his hands in an attitude of prayer, and
kept muttering words which I could not hear.

On leading him to the cell, where he was in solitude to be left for the night, I could not help thinking, as I have done on other occasions, that the first night is the true period of torture to
such a one as Wright, with remorse in his heart. I suspect we cannot picture those agonies of the spirit except by some comparisons with our experiences of pain; but as pain changes its character
with every pang, as it responds to the ever-coming and varying thoughts, our efforts are simply ineffectual. We give a shudder, and fly to some other thought for relief. To a sufferer such as
Wright, we can picture only one alternative—the total renunciation of the spirit to God, and how wonderfully the constitution of the mind is suited to this, the deepest remorse finding the
readiest way where we would think it might be reversed. It is impossible to rid one’s self of the conviction from this strange fact alone, that Christianity, which harmonises with this
instinct, so to call it, comes from the God of the instinct. It seemed to me that Wright would, in the ensuing night, find the solace he seemed to yearn for. He had already got some hope; and
becoming calm, I sat down beside him for a short time, for I had known him as a decent, hard-working fellow, incapable, except under some frenzy, of committing murder. I got from him the
conversation with Imrie, which I have given partly, I doubt not, in that incorrect way, as to the set form of words, inseparable from such narratives.

“When I called James an idiot,” he continued, “I saw the expression, as I thought, coming over his face, and I had the feeling I had in my dream, but I soon saw the old smile
there again, and was soon reconciled.

“‘Weel, maybe I am an idiot,’ said James, ‘for I’ve been aye dangling my bonnet in the presence o’ customers, when maybe if I had clapt it on my head
wi’ a gude thud o’ my hand, and said, “I’m as gude as you,” and forced my way i’ the warld, I wouldna, this day, be ca’d Jamie Imrie, the flesher’s
porter.’

“And the good soul smiled again, so we took another glass of the whisky,—a good thing when it works in a good heart, but a fearful one when it rouses the latent corruption of a bad
one. I fear it wrought so with me, for although we were old friends, I got still moodier, thinking more and more of my dream, while James became more humorous.

“‘But, Willie, my dear Willie,’ he said, ‘idiot as I may be, I doot if I would ha’e been better under your system, for I would hae been a daft laird o’ five
acres, and gi’en awa’ my snuff and my whisky, and maybe my turnips, to my freends, and got in debt and been a bankrupt proprietor; so, just to be plain wi’ you, and I’ve
thought o’ tellin’ ye this afore nou, I would recommend you to gi’e up this new-fangled nonsense o’ yours, or rather, I should say, auld-fangled, for you’ve been at it
since ever I mind. Naebody seems to understand it, and here’s a bit o’ a secret,’ lowering his voice, ‘the folks lauch at ye when you’re walking on the street, and
say, “There’s the political cobbler that’s to cobble up society.”’

“‘Laugh at me!’ I cried, in my roused wrath, yet I had borne ten times more from my old friend; ‘laugh at me, you villain!’

“Then James’s face grew dark—I watched it, it was the very face of my dream. The drink deceived me, no doubt, but I was certain of what I saw. I observed him move, as if he
wanted the knife. Oh, terrible delusion! I believe the good soul had no such intention; but I was carried away by some mysterious agency. I thought I was called upon to defend myself against
murder; I grasped the knife, and in an instant plunged it into his belly, and as I drew out the weapon, the blood gushed forth like a well. ‘Oh, Willie!’ he cried, and fell at my
feet.

“I immediately roared for help, and in ran my wife, followed by neighbours. With the knife in my hand, I rushed out, and fell into your arms. Now, can you read this story, and tell me the
meaning of it? I have already said I am not mad; but why was I led by a dream to stab my friend? Is there any meaning in my conduct as directed by Providence?”

“I just fear, William,” said I, “from what I observed in you that morning when you told me your dream, that you had been drinking too much whisky, which, fevering and
distempering your mind, produced not only the dream, but the subsequent notion that poor James was intent upon killing you. You will now see the consequence of drink. One may trace the effects of
it for a time, but when, after a certain period, it begins to work changes in the tormented and worried brain, no man can calculate the results, or the crimes to which it may lead.”

“I believe you are right,” replied he; “and if James would just recover, he would be dearer to me than ever, and whisky no longer a deceitful friend; but, ah! I fear. And then
how am I to pass this night in a dark cell, with no one near me, and the vision of that bleeding body before my eyes aye, and those words sounding in my ear, which torture and wring my heart more
than a thousand oaths—those simple words, ‘Oh, Willie!’ ”

“You must trust where trust can find a bottom,” said I; “perhaps Imrie may live and recover.”

“God grant!” groaned the prisoner.

And with a sorrowful heart, I turned the key in the lock.

Next day, it was ascertained that Imrie had passed a night of extreme suffering, and then died. This information I conveyed to Wright. It was needless to try modes of breaking it to him. His
fear made him leap at it as one under frenzy will leap down a precipice. I had no nerve for what I have no doubt followed, and hurried out just as he had thrown himself on his hard bed, and I heard
his cries ringing behind the door as I again closed it.

Wright was brought to trial on a charge of wilful murder, with a minor charge of culpable homicide. It was a stretch to choose the latter; but the men were known to be friends, and as no one
witnessed the catastrophe, the milder construction was put upon an act which, after all, I suspect was simply one of temporary madness. I doubt if all the strange particulars were ever known.
Wright was sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude. I have often thought of this case, but never diverged from the theory I mentioned to Wright himself. It does not affect my opinion of
dreams. The two friends had been in the habit of getting into tilts, the result of their drinking. The dream was only an impression caused by some angry look forced out of the simple victim. The
fever of the brain gave it consistency, and deepened it, and under the apprehension that he himself was to be stabbed, he stabbed his friend. This is the only dream-case in my book; and I’m
not sorry for it, otherwise I might have glided into the supernatural, as others have done who have had more education than I, and are better able to separate the world of dreams from the stern
world of realities.

❖

T
here are certain duties we perform of which we are scarcely aware, and which consist in a species of strolling supervision among houses, which,
though not devoted to resetting, are often yet receptacles of stolen goods, through a mean of the residence there of women of the lowest stratum of vice and profligacy. Though we have no charge
against the house at the time, and no suspicion that it contains stolen property, we claim the privilege of going through it on the ostensible pretence that we have in view a particular object of
recovery. I have generally, I think, been fonder of these
pleasant
strolls than my brethren, perhaps for the reason that on some occasions I have been fortunate in what may be called
chance waifs. Among these there was at the period I allude to, a well-known house, known as the Cock and Trumpet, for the reason that a bantam was represented on the sign as blowing the clarion of
war in the shape of a huge French horn—significant no doubt of the crowing of the Gallic cockerel. It was a favourite of mine—the more by token that I had several times brought off
rather wonderful things. On one occasion I issued triumphantly with a Dunlop cheese weighing thirty pounds, on another with a dozen of Italian sausages, and on another with two live geese.

It was a feature of the portly landlady that she never knew (not she) that such things were in the house. “Some of thae rattling deevils o’ hizzies had done it. The glaikit limmers,
will they no be content wi’ their ain game, but maun turn common thieves?” Then her surprise was just as like the real astonishment as veritable wonder itself. “And got ye that in
my
house, Mr M’Levy? Whaur in a’ the earth did it come frae? and wha brought it to the Cock and Trumpet? I wish I kent the gillet.”

But the sound of
her
trumpet was changed one morning after she had taken to herself a certain Mr Alexander Dewar to be lord of her, her establishment, and the crowing bantam. Sandy, who
was himself a great thief, had thus risen in the sliding scale. It is not often that thieves rise to be the head of an establishment with a dozen of beds, though without even a fir table by way of
ordinary; but so true is the title of my book, that Sandy’s slide upwards was just the cause of a return downwards with accelerated velocity.

One morning I happened to be earlier on my rounds than usual, and though houses like the Cock and Trumpet do their business during night, and are therefore late openers, I found the door
open.

Something more than ordinary, I said to myself. The bantam must have been roused by some cock that has seen the morning’s light sooner than it reaches the deep recesses of that wynd.

And going straight in, and passing through a room of sleeping beauties reposing blissfully amidst a chorus of snorts, I came to the bed-room of the new master himself. The mistress was enjoying
in bed the repose due to her midnight and morning labours, snoring as deep as a woman of her size and suction could do, and beside her, in a chair, sat Sandy himself plucking lustily at fowls. He
had finished nine hens, and was busy with the last of nine ducks. No wonder that the bantam had crown so early.

“What a fine show of poultry, Sandy, man,” said I. “Where got you so many hens and ducks?”

“A man has surely a right to what comes into his ain trap,” replied the rogue, as unmoved as one of the dead hens. “They flew in at the window.”

And he proceeded with his operation of plucking.

My voice had in the meantime awakened his helpmate.

“Whaur can the hens hae come frae?” snorted the jolly woman. “Some o’ the hizzies, nae doot.”

“No, mistress,” said I; “they flew in at the window.”

“Weel, maybe they did.”

“Just in the way the Bologna sausages did,” said I.

“Na, it was the jade Bess Brown did that job, but I’m an innocent woman. Was I no sleeping when ye cam in? Does a sleeping woman catch hens in her sleep as she does flees in her
mooth?”

“Well,” said I, turning to Sandy, “you’re the man.”

“The Lord’s will be dune,” said the wife, in a tone quite at variance with her old system of asserting her innocence, (Sandy, her “husband”, being bone of her bone
and flesh of her flesh). “If Sandy has disgraced the house I made him master o’, ay, and a gentleman to boot, he maun just dree the dregs.”

Nor was I much surprised at this turn, for I had heard that she was losing conceit of Sandy, and had been repenting that she had raised him to the rank of a gentleman as well as lord of the Cock
and Trumpet. Here was a good opportunity for getting quit of him, and the shrewd Jezebel saw her advantage.

“Now, Sandy,” said I again to the cool rogue, still occupied with his work, and who had now arrived at the head feathers of the last duck, which head feathers (though generally left
by poultry pluckers) I observed he had carefully taken from every victim: “lay down the duck and get a pillow-slip.”