The Story of the Gorthley Twins.
IT was the custom at one time in Edinburgh for the proprietors of large self-contained houses to give them the names of the properties they had in the country—hence our Panmure House, Tweeddale Court, and so forth—and among them there was Gorthley House, of which no vestige now remains; nay, we are by no means sure where it was situated, beyond the fact that it was somewhere in the Canongate, but gone as it is according to the law of change, its name will always be associated with the law-plea Bruce versus Bruce, which contained the germ of the little romance we are now to relate in our way. And to begin in order, we take the state of matters at the time when the plea began. John Bruce of Gorthley had died, and left a widow and three daughters, two of whom were twins, and the third was the youngest. The names of the twins were Sarah and Martha, who at this time were two fine girls verging upon majority, and as like each other as two white peas; and surely if we might expect, in this world of strife and contention, that there should be found real love and friendship anywhere, it might be in the case of two sisters who had lain so close together for nine months, and who had drunk their milk at the same kindly fountain of a doating mother’s breast. But so full is the moral atmosphere of our fallen world of the spores of hatred, that you may as well try to keep a cheese from the seeds of green mould as the human heart from the germs of ill-will. And so it was that these two young ladies hated each other very heartily, for a reason which we will by and by reveal, to the astonishment of the reader; and this hatred was the counterpart of a contention that had embittered the lives of the father and mother, even up to the time of the former’s death.
All which will be better explained by following the course of events after the death of Mr Bruce, beginning with a visit on the part of Lady Gorthley—as she was called according to the custom of the time, when titles were held in such regard that the common people even forged them for the great—along with her favourite daughter, Martha, to the office of Mr James Pollock, the agent for the family. That her ladyship was bent upon some enterprise of considerable moment might have been guessed from the look of her face, which had that mysterious air about it belonging to secrecy, nor less from that of the daughter; and no one could have doubted that, whatever they were bent upon, the other twin, Sarah, was not to be let up to the secret. Perhaps the time of the visit to the writer was opportune, insomuch as Sarah had gone, as she had said, with her cousin, George Walkinshaw, advocate, to take a stroll by the back of St Leonard’s as far as “the Cat Nick,” and come home by the Hunter’s Bog; which couple, we may also say, had their secret too, in addition to their love affair, if that secret was not connected with the very same subject we have referred to as that which divided the family. Be all that as it might, we are going right along with the facts of the plea when we set forth that in a very short time Lady Gorthley and Martha were seated each on a chair in the writing office of the said agent, Mr Pollock, and the very first words that came out of her ladyship’s mouth were these—
“Has Sarah or her cousin called upon you since the death of Gorthley?” by which she meant, according to the custom of the time, her own husband.
“They are even at this moment in the other room, madam,” said he, with a lawyer’s smile on his face.
“Indeed,” said her ladyship, with an expression of both surprise and anger. “Why, she told me an hour ago that she was going to take a walk by the ‘Cat Nick.’”
“And so she has,” added the writer, still smiling, “for my door may not be inappropriately so called in the circumstances?”
“Only, I presume,” said the lady, “I am not, I hope, to be included among the cats. I will wait until you have learned what the impertinent girl has got to say, and then you will have time to hear me and Martha.”
“I already know that,” said he; “but, as I believe our conversation is about finished, I will despatch them in a few seconds, and then return to hear your ladyship’s commands.”
“But you will say nothing of our being here.”
“The never a word, madam,” said he, adding to himself as he went away, “I don’t want a battle of the cats in my office at least; they do best when they put the cheese into the hands of the ——,” and he did not add the word monkey, insomuch as it looked personal.
“There, you see, Martha, the gipsy is determined to stand by her rights,” was the remark of her ladyship after Mr Pollock had left the room.
“But we’ll beat her off, mother,” rejoined Martha, with a spirit which Mr Pollock or any other lawyer might have admired; “and,” continued Martha, with a smile, “we will say nothing about the strawberry.”
“Nothing, dear,” rejoined the mother; “that strawberry is worth all the lands of Gorthley.”
Of which enigmatical strawberry they said no more; but that is no reason why we should not say something of it when the proper time comes, of which, by the rules of our art, we are the best judges. Meanwhile Mr Pollock, having despatched the other feline, returned.
“And now, madam,” said he, as he took his seat, “I am ready to hear you.”
“You know, Mr Pollock,” resumed her ladyship, “that the entail of Gorthley provides that the property shall go to the eldest heir female in the event of there being no heir male.”
“We all know that, madam,” said the writer; “and if we had any doubt of it a certain paper in that green box there would very soon clear up our vision. But the question is, which of the two young ladies, Sarah or Martha, first saw the light of day?”
“No question at all,” rejoined the lady. “Martha was the first-born.”
“Yes, madam, I know, and knew before, that that is your opinion; but you are perhaps not aware that Gorthley himself told me, some time before he died, that Sarah was the first-born; and so we have here, so far as the testimony goes, one witness against another.”
“And what knew he about it?” retorted she, sharply. “He was not present at the birth to see; while I fancy you won’t deny I was.”
Whereupon Mr Pollock, getting into the mistake that her ladyship was drolling, and being a droll himself, said, laughing, “Why, madam, no man could deny the necessity of your being present any more than in the case of Girzel Jamphrey, who said to the people who were pressing on to see her burnt as a witch on the sands at Dundee, ‘You needna be in sic a hurry; there will be nae sport till I come.’”
Whereat Lady Gorthley tightened the strings she had allowed to get loose.
“It’s not a matter to joke about, sir,” she said. “Though I am not a witch, I say, and will maintain, that I am a better witness to the fact of which of the twins was born first than Gorthley could possibly be.”
“Still, madam,” continued the writer, “I fear it is only a comparison between the value of two ciphers; the one may look bigger than the other, but each is equal to nothing. It is true that we men don’t know much of these things, yet—I beg pardon, the subject is a little delicate—we know that when a lady bears twins she doesn’t take the first and mark it before she bears the second; and then if she doesn’t mark it in the very nick of time, it’s of no use, because the two babies get mixed in the bath, as an Irishman would say, and their being so like as one strawberry to another, no one can say that the one is not the other, or the other not the one.”
At which mention of the word strawberry, Lady Gorthley looked to Martha, and Martha looked to her, and they seemed puzzled.
“But however all that may be,” continued the lady, “what can you say to the evidence of Peggy Macintosh, the nurse, who will swear that Martha came first into the world?”
“I cannot answer that question,” said he, with the caution of his profession, “until I see Mrs Macintosh and examine her. There is also Jean Gilchrist, one of the servants, who was present, I have her to examine also, and then we will see where the truth lies. Oh! but I forgot there is Mrs Glennie, the midwife, the woman whose word will go farthest, because she had a better causa scientiæ.”
“I know nothing about Latin,” rejoined her ladyship angrily; “but as for Mrs Glennie, she’s dead years ago.”
“Ah, indeed,” said Mr Pollock, “if that is true we will have only the nurse and the servant for witnesses, and if they oppose each other, the one for Sarah and the other for Martha, and as it is true that you always treated Martha as the eldest, and Gorthley always insisted on Sarah as being the first-born, we will have an undecidable case, a thing that never occurred in Scotland before, perhaps not in the world, for you know Solomon would not allow any impossibility in deciding the case of the baby with the two mothers. But, madam, allow me to say, that as your husband, Mr Bruce, left directions that I, as agent for the family, should get Sarah served heir, and as you insist upon that being done for Martha, it will be necessary that you employ a man of business of your own, so that we may fight the battle fair out.”
“Well,” said the lady with an expression of bitterness in her face not much in harmony with her words, “since Gorthley has left the continuance of the strife as a legacy to his widow and children, I shall go to Mr Bayne as my agent, and authorise him to protect the rights of Martha, and fight it to the bitter end—bitter, I mean, for Sarah Bruce, who will never be Lady Gorthley.”
And with these words she left, accompanied by Martha, directing their steps to the office of Mr Bayne, who, as her ladyship’s private agent, knew very well of this most strange contention which had so long been maintained in Gorthley House. Nor, probably, was he displeased at it, any more than Mr Pollock had been. Gorthley estate was a large cheese, the cats were fierce, and there was plenty for even two monkeys, so he listened attentively to her ladyship’s statement that the nurse, Mrs Macintosh, would swear in favour of Martha, but she said never a word about Jean Gilchrist.
“The nurse’s evidence will go a great way, madam,” said he, “seeing the midwife is dead; but it will be satisfactory if Mrs Macintosh could condescend upon some mark which she noticed immediately at the time of the birth, for the two young ladies are really so like each other now I often confound them, nay, they confound me so that we cannot very well imagine how they could be distinguished when brought together soon after birth.”
“Look here, Mr Bayne,” said the lady in a whispering way, as if she were to reveal something wonderously mysterious, “look here, sir,”—
And taking off Martha’s cloak and turning up the kerchief that covered her neck and the top of her shoulders, she said, “Do you see that?”
The writer complied by a pretty narrow inspection of a very pretty neck of (a strawberry being in question) the appropriate colour of cream.
“A very decided mark of a strawberry,” said he; “and, really if it were a proof that Martha has the right to succeed to Gorthley, it might be said to be the most beautiful beauty spot that a young lady could bear. How comes that mark to be there?”
“Why,” replied the lady, “Gorthley threw a strawberry at me when I was in the way, you know, and thus made a mother’s mark, as they call it, just as if he had intended to point out the true heir; and you know the Scotch say that these marks are lucky.”
“But you forget, madam,” replied the man of the law, who did not believe in special providences, except in special cases, when he received payment of his accounts. “You forget that Gorthley was against Martha, so that if he had had any intention in the matter, it must rather have been to make a blot; besides, our judges might probably say that the mark, for aught they knew, was intended to show that Martha was not the heir; in short, unless we can identify the mark as having been seen on the first-born, I fear, though it is very pretty, it will do us no good.”
“But Mrs Macintosh can do that,” replied the lady.
“Ah! you have hit the mark now,” said he; “and I will see Mrs Macintosh, and any other witnesses who can speak to the point.”
And so having, after some more conversation, despatched his two clients, Mr Bayne proceeded that same evening to the residence of Mrs Peggy Macintosh, whom he found very busy spinning, little prepared for a visit from a man of the law, with a powdered wig on his head, and a gold-headed cane in his hand,—an apparition which even the wheel could not resist, for it stopt its birr instantly, as if through fear.
“Mrs Macintosh,” said Mr Bayne, as he took a seat alongside of Peggy, “do you remember having been present at the birth of Mrs Bruce’s twins?”
“Indeed, sir, and I was,” answered she, “and a gey birth it was.”
“And could you tell which was which when the infants were born?”
“Weel, sir,” answered Peggy, “if you will tell me which is the which you mean, I’ll try to satisfy ye if I can?”
“Why, I mean, which was Sarah and which Martha?” continued the writer.
“How could I tell ye that, sir,” answered Peggy, with a look of true Scotch complacency, “when the bairns werena christened?”
The writer, acute as he was, was a little put out, but he rallied.
“Why, Peggy, you surely understand what I mean; did you not know the child which was afterwards called Sarah from that which was afterwards called Martha?”
“I would have liked to have seen you try that, sir,” was again the answer. “How the deil—I beg pardon, sir—was I to ken what they were to be ca’ed when their names werena even fixed by the father and mother themselves?”
“I see you don’t understand me, Mrs Macintosh,” continued Mr Bayne, who had got a Scotch witness on his line.
“I think it’s you that doesna understand me,” retorted Peggy.
“Look here,” continued Mr Bayne, smiling, “you know Sarah Bruce and Martha Bruce?”
“Ay, when they’re thegither,” replied Peggy, “and they tell me their names; but just put them an ell or twa asinder, and I’ll defy the horned Clootie himsel to say which is which.”
“Worse and worse,” muttered the writer. “Look you, Peggy, was there no mark on either of the children by which you could know it?”
“Ay was there,” replied the woman; “but we’re just where we were; for, whether the strawberry was upon the ane or the ither, or the ither or the ane, is just what I want you, since you’re a man o’ the law, and weel skilled in kittle points, to tell me.”
“Worse even yet,” muttered the discomfited precognoscer.
“But I can mak the thing as plain as the Shorter Catechism,” continued she, with a sharp look, which revived the sinking hopes of Mr Bayne. “Mrs Glennie that night was in a terrible fluster, for she began to see that there was likely to be mair bairns than she bargained for—twins, if no may be trins; so Jean Gilchrist was brought up to help in addition to mysel. Then the first are cam’ in a hurry, the mair by token it kenned naething o’ the warld it was coming into, and Mrs Glennie pushed it into my hands. ‘There will be anither, Peggy,’ said she, ‘and look gleg;’ but there was only flannel for ane; and I gave the wean to Jean to wash, while I ran to get happins. I was back in less than five minutes; and, just as I was entering, ‘Here’s the other ane,’ said Mrs Glennie. I took it frae her, and gave it to Jean, and took frae her the ane she had washed, in order to wrap it, and so I did; but before I was dune I saw Jean wasna doing the thing as she ought; so I gave her the ane I had, and I took hers to wash it better; but before it was dune Mrs Glennie cried to me to come to help her with the lady; so I put my bairn into Jean’s arms alang side o’ the ither; and when I had finished with the lady I took the last ane frae Jean again; but before I had completed the dressing o’t Jean cried out, ‘This bairn is deein’.’ ‘You’re a fule,’ said I, ‘give it to me;’ and so she did. Then I ran and got some cordial, and poured it down the throat o’ the creature. By this time Jean had hers upon the settee, and I laid mine alang side o’t; but in a little time the mither was crying to see the weans; and Mrs Glennie took the ane, and I took the ither, and showed her them. Then Mrs Glennie took mine away to lay it down on the settee again; and I took hers and laid it down by the side o’ its sister. That’s how it was, sir, and sure I am naething can be plainer.”
“But what about the strawberry?” said Mr Bayne.
“Nane o’ us saw that till the bairns began to be mixed,” was the answer; “and then they were changed, and changed again sae aften that my head ran round, and I lost a’ count.”
“But haven’t you said to Lady Gorthley that the mark was on the first-born?” asked Mr Bayne.
“Indeed, and I did that same,” was the ready answer. “My lady gave me five gowden guineas to tell her; and, as I couldna be sure, I thought I couldna do better than to make safe and sure wark o’t; so I took five shillings out o’ the five guineas and gave it to the Carlin o’ the Cowgate, a wise woman, frae the very native place o’ thae far-seeing creatures, Auldearn, Auld Eppie, as they ca’ her, (they were all Eppies,) and she settled the thing in the trice o’ a cantrup; so you see the fact is sure that the strawberry belanged to the first-born.”
“And did you tell Lady Gorthley you went to Eppie?” inquired the discomfited writer.
“Gude faith na, she might hae asked back the five guineas,” answered Peggy; “and besides, if she got the truth, it was a’ ane to her, ye ken, where it cam’ frae; and you’ll be discreet and say naething.”
“Did you ask from the old woman the name of her who bore the mark?” rejoined Mr Bayne.
“Ay, but she said she didna like to spier that at the auld ane—Nick, ye ken—because he might have got angry and told her a lee, and that might hae brought me into a scrape wi’ her ladyship, who knew hersel which o’ her daughters bore the mark.”
“Very prudent,” muttered again the writer, as he rose, “this is a most satisfactory witness.”
And carrying this satisfaction along with him, he proceeded to the small garret occupied by Jean Gilchrist, the direction to which he had got from Mrs Macintosh. Believing as he did the statement made to him by the latter, he had very little hope of getting anything satisfactory out of his present witness, and wishing to keep her more to the point than he had been able to effect in the prior case, he assumed her presence at the birth, and came straight out with the question, whether she knew if there had been noticed on one of the children the mark of the strawberry.
“The strawberry?” said she, “ay, wi’ a’ wondered at that, but then it’s no uncommon things in weans to be marked in that way, so we sune got ower’t.”
“And was this mark on the child which was first born?” inquired he.
“I’ll tell you that, sir,” replied she, “if ye’ll tell me first which o’ the twa cam’ first into the world.”
Whereby Mr Bayne found himself where he was, in the hands of a Scotch metaphysician, for, was there not here an example of the à priori argument, to use the old jargon, wherein the cause is assumed to prove the effect, and the effect is then brought forward to prove the cause—a trick of wisdom we are yet in the nineteenth century playing every day?
“That is just what I want to know, Jean,” said he.
“And it’s just what I want to ken, too,” rejoined Jean, “for to tell you God’s truth, sir,” she continued in a lower tone, “I hae something on my conscience, and yet it’s no muckle either.”
“And what is that?” said he, expecting to get at something on which he could rely, whatever it might be.
“Just this,” answered Jean. “Years agane, Gorthley came to me, and said, ‘Jean Gilchrist, here is something for you,’ and I took it—it was a purse o’ gowd,—and then he said, ‘I would die happy, Jean, if I could think that Martha Bruce, who bears the mark, was the second born of my daughters;’ and, looking at the purse, said I, ‘Weel, sir, if that will mak ye happy, ye may be happy, for it was even so.’ Then said he, ‘Will you stand to that, Jean?’ And I said, ‘Ay, will I, through thick and thin;’ and when he went away, I began to consider if I had dune wrang, but I couldna see it, for doesna the Bible say, that man and wife are ane flesh? and if that be true, how could their children be separate flesh? Weel then, whichever o’ the twa, the first or the second born, carried the mark, they baith being ane flesh, behoved to bear it, and so, if the ane bore it the other bore it, and if the other bore it the ane bore it. Besides, wha doesna ken that twins are just ae bairn cut in twa? They’re aye less than the single bairns, and isna a double-yokit egg just twa eggs joined thegither into ane.”
A kind of logic common at the time, and which, indeed, touched upon the most obscure question of metaphysics, and not very satisfactory to Mr Bayne, who, however, knew the subtle character of the Scotch mind too well to try a fall with so acute a dialectician. So, altogether disappointed with his precognition he left and came away, meeting in the passage Mr Pollock, who had been with Mrs Macintosh, and was now on his way to Jean Gilchrist. They were very intimate, and did not hesitate to compare notes, the result of which was that the case was to realise once more the truth of the toast generally drunk by Edinburgh practitioners at the end of the session, “The glorious uncertainty;” and if Mr Pollock thought so before he examined Jean Gilchrist, his opinion must have been pretty well confirmed by what she said. The case, in short, was not one in which there is conflicting evidence, and where the judges can make out the weight by a hair of prejudice; it was a case in which there was no evidence at all as to which of the girls was the heir; but, then, it was just on account of this equipoise that the two claimants, Martha, helped by her mother on the one side, and Sarah, supported by her lover, Walkinshaw, on the other, waxed the more bitter; and the contention which had so long raged in Gorthley House became hotter and hotter. Nor need we fancy that the writers would try to get the right compromised in some way, where they had so good a chance of making a money certainty out of a moral uncertainty; and so the case went into court under two competing briefs, that is just two claims by the daughters, each insisting to be served heir. The witnesses, whose precognitions we have given, were examined; and a great number of servants who had been in the family, who swore that Gorthley himself always called Sarah Miss Bruce, and Mrs Bruce always called Martha by that dignified title, so that the servants tried to please both master and mistress by calling the one daughter or the other miss, just according to the chance of being overheard by the heads of the house. When before the sheriff, and when the claims were equally suspended, a strange plea was set up by Sarah’s counsel, Mr Fotheringham, to the effect that, taking the question of priority of birth to be doubtful, the doubt could be resolved by a kind of nobile officium on the part of the father as the head of the house, and that as Gorthley had declared for Sarah this should be held as sufficient; but Mr Maitland answered this by saying that the question being one of fact, and that fact coming more within the presumed knowledge of the mother, ought to be settled by the voice of the mother, who declared for Martha; and here again the argument being nearly equal, the judge on the inquest was nonplussed. And thus it came to pass that the old irony of the ancients, directed against a sow coming in place of Minerva as a judge of some very fine matter of truth, turned out to be in this case no irony at all, for the sow was here as good a judge as Minerva. The scales were so nearly balanced that the mere breath which conveyed the doubt might disperse the doubt by moving one of the scales—a very fine irony in itself, in so much as all truth may be resolved, in the far end, into the mere breath of man’s opinion. At length the sheriff gave the cast of the scale to the side of the mother, as the “domestic witness.”
But Sarah was, of course, dissatisfied; or, rather, Fotheringham, who advised her to take the case before the Fifteen, by what is called an Advocation, and so to be sure these lords got a burden thrown upon them which cost them no little trouble. They got the case argued and argued, and were in the end so mystified, that if they could have decided that the question was undecidable, they would have been very glad to have hung it up among the eternal dubieties as an everlasting proof of “the glorious uncertainty;” but they could not agree even to do that, for the entail could not be compromised or set aside, and so they behoved to decide one way or another. Meanwhile, the case having made a noise, a great number of people were collected in court on the day when the judgment was to be finally given. And given it was so far, for seven judges were for Sarah, and seven for Martha, so it came to the president, who said, “I have read of a case somewhere in which the judges drew cuts, and decided by the Goddess Chance in place of justice; and, indeed, if the latter is blind, as they say she is, we may take the one as well as the other as the umpire of the right or the wrong. But there is one consideration which moves me in this case, and that is, that as it is the wife’s duty to bear the children of the family, so it is her privilege to know more about that interesting affair than the husband, who is, as I understand, never present at the mysteries of Lucina, and, therefore, I would be inclined to declare that Martha was the first-born.”
“It’s a lee, my lord,” cried a shrill screaming voice from the court. Whereat the judges directed their eyes with much amazement to the place whence the scream came.
“And who are you,” said the president, “who dare to speak in a court of justice?”
“I deny it’s a court o’ justice,” cried the voice again. “My name is Janet Glennie, and it was me that had the first handlin’ o’ the bairns, and I tell your lordship to your face, that you’re clean wrang, and ken nae mair about the case than Jenkins did about the colour o’ the great grandmother o’ his hen. I tell ye it was Sarah wha came first, and Martha wi’ her strawberry came second, for I saw the mark wi’ my ain een.”
A speech followed by the inevitable laugh of a curious audience, and the better received that the people had always a satirical feeling against the fifteen wise wigs. Nor was this late testimony too late: Mrs Glennie was subsequently sworn, and the judgment went for Sarah. It turned out that Mrs Glennie had been absent for a time from Scotland, and, having, upon visiting Edinburgh, heard of the famous trial, made it a point to be present. Nay, there was a little retribution in the affair, for Lady Gorthley knew she was alive, and had reported her death to serve her own ends.
