At War with Society; or, Tales of the Outcasts Read online

  The Whiskers.

  It may be naturally supposed that we detectives are not much given tosadness. It is, I suspect, a weakness connected with me, a tendency tomeditate on the vanity of human wishes; and I should be free from thefrailty, insomuch as there has been less vanity in my wishes toapprehend rogues than in the case of most other of the artistes of myorder. Yet am I not altogether free from the weakness. We have a naturalwish to see our friends happy around us, and this desire is the sourceof my little frailty; for when I find my ingenious friends off my beat,and away elsewhere, I immediately conclude they are being happy at theexpense of others, and I am not there to sympathise; nor does it affectthis tendency much that I am perfectly aware that my sympathy ratherdestroys their happiness.

  I had, about April 1854, lost sight for a time of the well-known DanGillies. He had had my sympathies more than once, and immediately tookto melancholy; but somehow or another he recovered his gaiety,--a sureenough sign that he again stood in need of my condolence. I had beentold that in kindness he and his true-hearted Bess M'Diarmid had gone tothe grazing on turnips, (watches,) and that I had small chance of seeinghim for a time. Well, here was an occasion for a return of my fit, forwasn't Dan happy somewhere, and I not there to see. I don't say I wasthinking in that particular direction on that 5th day of April when Iwas walking along Princes Street, for indeed I was looking for anothernatural-born gentleman among those who, considering they have betterclaims to promenade that famous street, pretend to despise those who, Ihave said, are nearer to natural rights than they are; but indulging inthat habit of side-looking, which I fear I have borrowed from myfriends, who persist in an effort to avoid a straight, honest look atme, I descried a well-known face under a fine glossy silk hat, and abovea black and white dappled cravat. A glance satisfied me that the rest ofthe dress was in such excellent harmony that he might, two minutesbefore, have come out of the Club, where plush and hair-powder stands atthe door. It was Dan. The grazing must have been rich to give him sosmooth and velvety a coat; and to shew that he had not despised hisfare, he had a yellow "shaw" stretching between the middle of his finevest to the pocket. When a grand personage, who despises the toil whichmakes us all brethren, meets one of my humble, laborious order, he makesa swerve to a side, even though the wind is in another direction, toavoid the blasting infection of common humanity, and Dan was here trueto his class; but as I do not discard the duties any more than therights of nature, I overlooked the insult, and swerved in the samedirection, not being confident enough, nevertheless, to infect with mytouch the hand of a Blue-Vein, if not a Honeycomb.

  "Why, Dan," said I, as I faced him, and somewhat interrupted hispassage, "what a fine pair of whiskers you've got since I saw you. Theturnips must have been reared on the real Peruvian."

  "What the d----l have you to do with my whiskers?"

  "One who has been the means of shaving your head," replied I, "maysurely make amends by rejoicing in the growth of your fine hairelsewhere."

  "None of your gibes. Be off. I owe no man anything."

  "No, Dan, but every man, you know, owes you, if you can make him pay.Don't you know what's up?"

  "No, and don't care."

  "There's a grand ship-launch at Leith to-day."

  "D----n your ship-launch!" said the Honeycomb; and pushing me aside,Dan strutted away under the indignation of the shame of my presence.

  I could not help looking after him, and recollecting the remark of LordChesterfield on the South-Sea Islander who sat at table in the companyof lords. Looking at his back, you could perceive no difference betweenhim and a high-bred aristocrat. But the aristocrats don't mind thosethin distinctions.

  Having some much more important business in hand that day, allrecollection of Dan and his whiskers passed out of my mind. I remember Ihad to meet a French lackey who could point out to me a London brewer'sclerk committed to my care. The offender had run away from his employer,taking with him not only the flesh which had got so lusty upon thestout, but also a couple of thousand pounds which he ought to havedeposited in a bank; nor was this even the entire amount of hisdepredations, for he had also contrived to abstract the brewer's wife,described by my Frenchman as a "great succulent maman of forty years,"and not far from that number of stones avoirdupois. With such game inprospect, it was not likely I should trouble myself with Dan Gillies,nor did I care more for the Leith launch. The constables there couldlook to that, though I was not the less aware that if Dan got among thecrowd there would be pockets rendered lighter, without more of a"purchase" than might be applied by a thief's fingers.

  Notwithstanding of the brightness of my prospects in the morning--for Ihad even pictured to myself the English clerk with the "succulent maman"hanging on his arm, and together promenading Princes Street--my hopesdied away as the day advanced. I had got, moreover, weary of the clatterof the lackey, and was, in short, knocked up. It might be about fouro'clock, I think, when I resolved upon returning by the way of theOffice, where I had some report to make before going home to dinner. Iproceeded slowly along Waverley Bridge, turned past the corner ofPrinces Street gardens, and advanced by the back of the Bank ofScotland. I was in reality at the time looking for none of my friends. Ihad had enough of looking, and felt inclined rather to give my eyes arest by directing them to the ground, after the manner of melancholymusers. As I was thus listlessly making my way, I was roused by a rapidstep, and I had scarcely time to look up when I encountered my youngHoneycomb of the morning. I was at first confused, and no great wonder,for there was Dan Gillies without a single hair upon his face. Themoment he saw me he wanted to bolt, but the apparition prompted me onthe instant to cross him, and hold him for a moment at bay.

  "Dan, Dan," said I, with really as much unfeigned surprise as humour,"what has become of your whiskers, man?"

  A fiery eye, and the terrible answer which sends a man to that placewhere one might suppose that eye had been lighted, so full of fury wasit.

  "Why, it's only a fair question," said I, again keeping my temper. "Imight even wish to know the man who could do so clean a thing."

  "What have you to do with my barber?"

  "Why, now you are getting reasonable," said I; "your question is easilyanswered; I might want him, say on a Sunday morning, to do to me what hehas done to you."

  Again dispatched to the place of four letters with an oath which musthave been forged there by some writhing soul, I could stay him nolonger, for making a rush past me, Dan Gillies was off in the directionof the Flesh-market Close, up which I saw him turn.

  His oaths still rung in my ear. I have often thought of the wonderfulaptitude of the grown-up Raggediers at swearing; they begin early, ifthey do not lisp, in defiances of God, and you will hear the oathsringing amidst the clink of their halfpennies as they playpitch-and-toss. Their little manhood is scarcely clothed in buckram,when they would look upon themselves as simpletons if they do notvindicate their independence by daring both man and Heaven. You may saythey don't understand the terms they use. Perhaps few swearers do; butin these urchins the oaths are the sparks of the steel of their souls,and there is not one of them unprepared to shew by their cruelty thattheir terrible words are true feelings. It may appear whimsical in me,but I have often thought that if this firmness of character--for it isreally a mental constitution--were directed and trained by education andreligion in the track of duty, it would develop itself as an energyfitted for great and good things. A man like me has no voice in thePrivy Council; but _literature_, as I have heard said, is a bigwhispering-gallery, whereby the humblest of minds may communicate withthe highest. Let it be that my whisper is laughed at, as everything isgrinned at or laughed at which is said for the hopefulness of our wyndreprobates; but I have learned by experience, that while the greatestvices spring from the dregs of society, the Conglomerates, as they arecalled in that book (which describes them so well,) "The Castes ofEdinburgh," so the greatest virtues sometimes spring from the samesource. How much of the vice they are _forced_ to retain, a
nd how muchof the virtue they are compelled to lose, is one of the whispers whichought to reach the ears of the great.

  At the time Dan left me, I was not in this grand way of thinking. Nay,to be very plain, I was laughing in my sleeve; because, in the firstplace, a detective is not a Methodist preacher; and in the second place,because I have a right to my fun as well as others; and in the thirdplace, because I came to the conclusion that Dan Gillies had some reasonfor shaving his whiskers which ought to interest me. In short, I had nodoubt that Dan and his "wife" had been at the ship-launch.

  With the laugh, I suppose, still hanging about my lips as a comfortablesolace after my ineffectual hunt after the brewer's clerk and the jollymaman, I entered the Office, where the first information I got was, thata lady had been robbed of her purse at Leith, and that a young wenchwas in hands there as having been an accomplice along with a swell of apickpocket who had escaped.

  "I was thinking as much," said I, with a revival of my laugh; "I knowthe man."

  And so I might well say, for I had now got to the secret of the shavedwhiskers.

  "What mean you?" said the lieutenant.

  "Why, just that if you want the man, I will bring him to you. I willgive you the reason of my confidence at another time."

  "To be sure we want him," was the rather sharp reply of my superior.

  "Then I will fetch him," said I.

  And so I went direct to Brown's Close, where I knew the copartnership ofGillies and M'Diarmid formerly carried on business, both in the domesticand trading way. Domestic! what a strange word as applied to thesecreatures--charm, as it is, to conjure up almost all the associationswhich are contained in the whole round of human happiness! Yes, I saydomestic; happiness is a thing of accommodation. These beings will goforth in the morning in the spring of hope, and after threading dangerswhich are nothing less than wonderful, jinking the throw of the loop ofthe line which grazes their very shoulders, and turning and doubling ina thousand directions to escape justice, they meet at nightfall to_enjoy_ the happiness of a home. The beefsteak, as it fries, gives outthe ordinary sound, the plunk of the drawn cork is heard, and theynarrate their hairbreadth escapes, their dangers, and their triumphs.They laugh, they sleep, but their enjoyment terminates with my knock atthe door. The solitary inmate is wondering at the absence of the femalewithout whom the word "domestic" becomes something like a mockery. It isneedless to deny him affections; he has them, and she has them, as thetiger and the tigress have them. They don't complain like other folk,because they don't bark or growl at Providence; but the iron screw is inthe heart. I have read its pangs in the very repression of itsexpression.

  I had been so quick in my movements that I went right in upon my manjust as he had entered, no doubt after the cautious doublings consequentupon our prior interview. The salutation given me was a growl of thewrath which had been seething in the Pappin's digestor of his heart.

  "What right have you to hound me in this way?" he cried, as he closedhis fist and then ground his teeth.

  "Why, Dan," said I, calmly, "I'm still curious about the whiskers."

  "Whiskers again," he roared.

  "Aye, just the whiskers," said I. "I have told you I am curious aboutthem, and I want to know why you parted with what you seemed so proudof?"

  "Gibe on; you'll make nothing of me," he cried again. "I defy you."

  "Well, but I cannot give up the whiskers in that easy way," said I,"because I have an impression that if the lady in Leith had not lost herpurse, your whiskers would still have clothed your cheeks."

  From which cheeks the colour fled in an instant. Even to the hardest ofcriminals the pinch of a fact is like the effect of a screw turned uponthe heart. It is only we who can observe the changes of theirexpression. Dan knew, in short, that he was caught; and I have beforeremarked that the regular thieves can go through the business of adetection in a regular way.

  "Well," he said, as he felt the closing noose, and with even a kind ofgrim smile, "I might as well have kept my hair."

  "Never mind," said I, "it will have time to grow in the jail. Comealong. The cuffs?"

  "Oh no, I think you have no occasion. Them things are only for theirregulars, you know. But do you think you'll mend Daniel Gillies by thejail?"

  "No," said I, "I don't expect it."

  "Then why do you intend to send me there?"

  "Why," replied I, in something like sympathy for one who I knew to be ofthose who are trained to vice before they have the choice of good orevil laid before them, "just because it is my trade."

  And, strange as it may seem, I observed a tear start into his red eye.

  "Your trade," said he, as he rubbed the cuff of his coat over his face,"your trade; and have you a better right to follow it than I have topursue mine? You didn't learn yours from your father and mother, didyou?"

  "No, Dan, but I know you did."

  "Yes, and the more's the pity," replied he, as he got even to anhysterical blubber. "I have had thoughts on the subject. Even when lastin the Calton I could not sleep. Something inside told me I was wronged,but not by God--by man. I was trained by fiends who made money by whatthey taught me, and I have been pursued by fiends all my life. When wasa good lesson ever given me, or a kindly word ever said to me, except bya preacher in the jail with a Bible in his hand? Suppose I had listenedto him, and when I got out had taken that book into my hand, and hadgone to the High Street and bawled out, 'Put me to a trade, employ me,and give me wages.' Who would have listened to me? A few pence from one,and the word 'hypocrite' from another, and then left to my old shifts,or starve. Take me up, but you'll never mend me by punishment."

  I always knew Dan to be a clever fellow, but I was not prepared for thisburst. Yet I knew in my heart it was true.

  "Well," said I, "Dan, I pity you. I have often thought that if that oldvillain David, and that old Jezebel Meg, who were your parents, had notcorrupted you, you had heart and sense to be a good boy."

  "Ay, and it has often wrung my heart," he replied, "when I have seenothers who were born near me, though only in Blackfriars' Wynd,respectable and happy, and I a criminal in misery by the chance ofbirth; but all this is of no use now. Then where's Bess, poor wretch?"

  "She's in Leith jail."

  "Right," cried he, as he blubbered again. "I sent her there. She was aplaymate of mine, and I led her on in the path into which I was led. Shemight have been as good as the best of them."

  And the poor fellow, throwing himself on a chair, cried bitterly.

  I have encountered more than one of these scenes. They have only painedme, and seldom been of any service to the victims themselves. Were athousand such cases sent up to the Privy Council, I doubt if theirobduracy in endowing ragged and industrial schools would be in theslightest degree modified.

  I believe little more passed. I had my duty to perform, and Dan was notdisobedient. That same evening he was sent to Leith. He was afterwardstried. He was identified by the lady and a boy who knew him, andsentenced to twelve months. Bess got off on the plea of not proven. Ilost all trace of them, but have no hopes that either the one or theother was mended by the detection through the whiskers. The hair wouldgrow again not more naturally than would spring up the old roots of evilplanted by those who should have engrafted better shoots on the stock ofnature.