McLevy (16 page)

Nor had I occupied my post long, till I saw him come in—more melancholy-looking than before; but then, was he not far away from his sweetheart in Woolwich? and the lover who was near him
was one whom he not only did not know, but could not gratify by a return of his affections. He was now wary too,—at least he looked about him as if he feared the presence of him who had
seized the thief,—and yet if he had had nothing to fear on his own account, he should have been glad to see him who had recovered the handkerchief; and here in the vestibule, and before going
into the counter, there occurred a trifling circumstance that afforded me some amusement. I saw him take out another handkerchief where with he blew his nose, as if he had said to himself, as he
sounded his horn, “I can blow my nose yet in spite of pickpockets;” and, what appeared to me to be curious, that handkerchief was of the same piece, being exactly the same pattern as
the one he lost yesterday. Yes, and how minute suspicion becomes! It is not often that young men of his appearance buy webs of handkerchiefs; and I concluded, upon such whimsical evidence, that
both handkerchiefs had been cut from the pawned piece. This notion amused me at least.

He then went in to the counter. I followed close up, and stood behind some people who were getting their letters or handing them over to be marked. He asked for the old address. It was that
given by the Woolwich authorities. He got his letter, and I now expected that he would have walked away far enough from the Post-office. No; he was too keen to get into his widowed heart the words
of love. He went out to the vestibule, and, looking about without seeing me, he opened the epistle and began to read. Being myself a suitor for his hand, and something more, I thought I had a right
to see what was in my Woolwich rival’s letter; so, as he was scanning it with all the attention of a lover, I quietly stood behind him, and, looking over his shoulder, began to read
too,—“My dearest love,” What a strange thing that love is! how independent of the moralities! Here it had flown on the wings of the wind three hundred miles to enfold (ay, and
unfold) a thief, and cheer him in his solitude. But he soon observed that some one was standing behind him reading secrets.

“How dare you?” he cried, as he turned round; but my appearance stopped the rest of his sentence; for was I not the very man who had apprehended the boy, and might him?

“I can even dare more than that,” I replied: “I can even ask your name and business.”

He hesitated, and, as I thought, shook.

“But, in the first place,” I continued, “give me that letter,” taking it out of his hands. “This is
not
your name,” looking to the back of it.

No answer.

“Is not your real name Milstead?”

“No; that is my name on the back of the letter. And why should it not be? I have this moment got it from the clerk.”

“I know that, for I saw you get it.”

“Then why doubt my word, and the name written there?”

“Because it is my trade to doubt, ay, and disbelieve, what I hear from certain people. I happen to know that your real name is Milstead; and if you have any desire to know whether my
information comes from Wooler or Woolwich, you must go with me to the Police-office.”

My melancholy friend now understood his position. A deadly paleness dashed his melancholy with increased solicitude; and, as I looked at him, I could not help feeling for one who, from the very
arms of love, was transferred into the iron bonds of the law.

He submitted to his fate with a resignation that does not often belong to lovers, and walked with me to the office, where he was put to the question:—

“Where are you putting up here, Mr Milstead?”

“I deny that that is my name.”

“Well, well, then Mr——.” The name on the letter; it is not in my book.

“Nowhere. I am living in Glasgow, and come here only to receive my letters.”

“Then, your luggage will be there?”

“Yes; anything I have.”

“At what lodging-house there?”

“A hotel on the quay.”

“Name?”

“Don’t remember.”

“Well,” said I, “you and I will go to Glasgow together, and you will show me where you are putting up.”

“I have no objections,” he replied, with more confidence than I expected.

About an hour afterwards, my man and I were on the express train, going at the rate of forty miles an hour.

On arriving at the Broomielaw,—where he had said his hotel was,—he showed me the house, and there I ordered some refreshment for both of us. After which I went—leaving him in
charge of a Glasgow officer I had picked up on the way—to the landlady of the hotel.

“What is the name of the young man I brought here just now?”

“Mr ——.” The name on the letter again.

“Do you know anything about him?” I asked.

“Nothing. He came here some days ago, intending to set sail for America, and I understood he was waiting for a ship that is to sail to-morrow from Greenock.”

“Has he any luggage?”

“A good deal,” she replied; “but you know it is his, and I have no power over it.”

“I am an Edinburgh officer,” said I; “and I fancy that will be warrant enough for you.”

“An officer! and is that gentle-looking, sorrowful young man a criminal?”

“That’s what I want to know,” said I; “and perhaps the luggage may help us.”

“Well, I will take you to his bed-room; but stop,” she continued, rather hesitatingly, “I have some money of his.”

“How much?”

“Fifty sovereigns,” said she.

“I will take that from you in the meantime,” said I, “and then you will show me the luggage.”

She went and got the money, counted it over to me, and I deposited it in my purse.

We then went into a bed-room, where she showed me his portmanteaus and trunks; a goodly stock for a voyage to America. I proceeded to take a partial survey, previous to a more perfect one when
we arrived. My eye sought a certain pattern of a handkerchief, but I was for the present at least disappointed. I had now nothing to do but get my man and his baggage to the metropolis, and,
accordingly, we again embarked.

While about half-way between Glasgow and Edinburgh, I noticed that my man was even more serious than ever. There was something passing in his mind; and every now and then he looked at me as if
he had something very important to say to me. At length he whispered in my ear,—

“Mr M’Levy,” for he had got my name from the Glasgow officer, “the only evidence upon which they can convict me in London is the articles and money you have got, I
understand, from the landlady of the hotel.”

“And enough, too,” said I.

“Enough, and too much,” he sighed; and after a few minutes’ silence he continued, “I have been thinking, that if you are a man of any heart——”

“And conscience,” I added, having a notion of what was coming.

“That if you were just to keep the money and the articles to yourself, and say nothing about it, I will say nothing.”

“What more?”

“Why, then you might deliver me up to the London authorities, and I will not care much, because if they have nothing I have taken to bring against me, they cannot convict me.”

“Very good,” replied I; “but then I just fear that
SOME ONE
may convict me. Because you are acquainted with the devil, perhaps you think there is no
God. No, no, my young friend, that’s not my way of doing business. You forget I am a messenger of Justice, and you would bribe her.”

He hung down his head on his breast, nor lifted it again during all the time of our journey.

On our arrival, I got him locked up; and perhaps my sorrow for my Jacques was a good deal modified by the recollection of his wish to tamper with my honesty, which had heretofore stood proof
against all the temptations of glittering watches and diamond rings. The whole of my intercourse with this young man had been curious; but, I confess, there was one incident I was more concerned
with than all the rest. Was it possible that I could find out, from his luggage, anything to satisfy me in regard to the mysterious handkerchief? I could have no peace till I should have gone over
the whole; and this I did, but was again disappointed. I had next recourse to the young man himself, and, taking the article with me,

“You remember,” said I, “the loss of your handkerchief at the Post-office?”

“Yes,” said he; “a thief picked my pocket, and the letter fell out. I snatched up the letter.”

“Which I have got,” said I.

“Yes, but it did not tell you much.”

“No, I confess it did not, because it is directed to your assumed address; but the handkerchief, it is that I wish to speak to.”

“Well, what of that? I am in for it at any rate, and I don’t care now what I say to you, if you will not use it against me.”

“There is so much against you,” said I, “that anything you may add will make no difference.”

Some sighing again, which rather went to my heart, in spite of my recollection of the attempt to bribe me.

“Well, here is the handkerchief,” said I; “and I wish you to tell me, only to gratify my own curiosity, whether that formed a part of the articles you carried off from the
pawn-office?”

“Yes,” said he, taking it into his hand; “it’s one of a piece; and I had another of the same in my pocket when I was apprehended.”

“Well,” said I, “this is an extraordinary circumstance, and might teach you that there are higher powers than detective-officers. Upon that handkerchief, which was taken from
you by the boy, I could have got you convicted, though I had not discovered another item of evidence against you.”

“Most wonderful!” he ejaculated.

“Yes,” said I; “but this is only one example out of many I have witnessed of such strange interpositions in my favour, that I have been often inclined to get on my knees in the
street in reverent awe of that Eye which sees all, and of that Hand which can point Justice to her object, while all the time we are thinking that we ourselves are the only agents.”

The London officers came and took Milstead up for trial. I was present, and I need not say that the case was hollow against him, without my bit of miraculous discovery. Neither did I take any
notice of the bribe, for I did not want to bear hardly against him. But the case was viewed as a serious breach of trust,—far worse, in one view, than robbery with force,—insomuch that
an end of confidence between master and servant is an end to business—that very thing on which the greatness of Britain depends. He was sentenced to transportation for seven years.

❖

I
f it be true, that which has been so often said, that we are, in our passage through life, all actors on the stage of the world, so must it be true that we are not
always doomed to tragedy or melo-drama. No man, so far as I have been able to see, is limited or can limit himself to one part. Many who with their long faces and lugubrious speech seem cut out by
nature for deep tragedy, can play broad farce very successfully, though it is not always they wish to be seen or get any applause for their performance. Even reverend gentlemen, I am sorry to say,
do not always confine themselves to serious pieces; and certain it is, on the other hand, that many who seem to be formed for harlequins come off with great effect in tragedy, though often not with
their own good will. If it were all quite voluntary, every one would know his cue and do it well, but it really is not that in most cases, and this makes the scene to an onlooker or philosopher the
more queer, insomuch that we see every day broad grins changed into heavy chops, and hear roars of mirth dying away to rise in deep groans—tears of joy changed into those of grief, and so
forth, and then t’other way as well. As for me, I play all kinds of parts, but then my feelings are merely of the sympathetic kind, seldom moved except in a professional way, so I have here
an advantage. Even in my pity for criminals there is often mixed traits of enlivenment, and I have known, as I am now to relate, the gambols of a real monkey mixed with the griefs and sorrows of
those who make worse than monkeys of themselves.

Some time in 1845 my good friend James Bell having got wearied of the routine of catching and being caught in turn—always the same thing over again—the rollicking and drinking among
depraved women, and then a long course of solitary meditation in the college of training at the Calton—merry and sad, and sad and merry alternately—took a strange fancy into his head
that he might change all this into something like respectable uniformity, if not uniform respectability. But how was he to effect the change? He couldn’t get work. If he had gone to the Tron,
as he said to me, and bawled out, “A thief to let—what will you give for him?—quite reformed, I assure you—reads his Bible, and tried a revival once—five shillings
a-week—who says?—the article’s at your service,” he wouldn’t have much chance of being employed. Then he couldn’t work except as a labourer, and even as such he
could do little; for a steady shovel man requires both perseverance and a certain some other thing for which we have no name, but which in its result becomes apparent when you examine what he does
by Hoppus. But why talk about a thief becoming a sweaty-browed, hard-palmed labourer? Bless you, the thing is impossible! James Bell knew this, and even when he wanted a change, didn’t wish
to work. He would be an easy gentleman, no longer disturbed by detectives; but how was this to be effected in an old country like Great Britain?

Well, the plan adopted by him will show. James had had his envy roused by these easy-going gentlemen who go about with an organ and a monkey. It was doubtful, so various are tastes, if James
thought any creature higher or happier on earth than such a musical artist, actor, merrymaker, traveller, drawer of pennies, and free-and-easy liver, always abroad during the day, and at night
nobody knows where. But, alas! every trade, except authorship and thieving, requires some capital. How was James to get the organ, the monkey, and the velvet coat? Ay, but there’s an old
saying, that nobody ever “bode for a silk gown but aye got a sleeve o’t,” and all things need only a beginning. “The Little Warbler”, it is said, was the origin of a
publishing firm in Edinburgh, which ultimately realised an income to the tune of ten thousand a-year, and James would try a small beginning in his musical way. Lobby nobs did not wear these nobby
togas, velvet coats, and, after all, the monkey was of greater importance. Now, there was a caravan in the Grassmarket, on the front boards of which a small homuncle, with a red jacket and a blue
ribbon on his tail, played such gambols that he extorted the laughter of the youngsters of that part of the old town to an extent which induced James to believe that a fortune might be made out of
him. If he could just get hold of that little hairy man he would give up thieving, and become a respectable member of society. But how was he to get him? The question was a difficult one, and he
knew it by the very efforts he made to solve it as he stood in the front of the stage lights, and admired these wonderful evolutions, and meditated for hours together on the means whereby he could
make the wonderful tumbler, posture-maker, and merry-andrew his own, without paying a penny for him, which penny he had not to pay.