Romances of the old town of Edinburgh

by Alexander Leighton

The Story of the Six Toes.

A MAN who makes a will generally knows pretty well the person to whom he leaves a legacy, but it does not follow that other people are to have the same enlightenment as to the identity of the legatee. I make the remark in reference to a common story connected with the will of honest Andrew Gebbie, who officiated once as a ruling elder in the Church of Trinity College, Edinburgh, and was supposed to have done so much good to the people by his prayers, exhortations and psalm-singing, that it was utterly unnecessary for his getting to heaven, where he had sent so many others, that he should bequeath a single plack or bawbee to the poor when he died. Yet whether it was that the good man Andrew determined to make sure work of his salvation, or that he had any less ambitious object in view, certain it is that some time before he died he made a will by his own hand, and without the help of a man of the law, in spite of the Scotch adage—

“Who saves a fee and writes his will

Is friendly to the lawyers still;

For these take all the will contains,

And give the heir all that remains.”

And by this said will honest Andrew bequeathed the sum of three hundred pounds sterling money to “Mistress Helen Grey, residing in that street of the old town called Leith Wynd,” without any further identification or particularisation whatsoever, nor did he say a single word about the cause of making this somewhat generous bequest, or anything about the merits or services of the legatee. A strange circumstance, seeing that the individual being a “Nelly Grey” had long been a favourite of the poets, (and, therefore, rather indefinite,) as she indeed still figures in more than one very popular song, wherein she is even called bonny Nelly Grey.

Then, to keep all matters in harmony, he appointed three clergymen—the minister of his own church, the minister of the Tolbooth, and the minister of the Tron—as his executors for carrying his said will into execution, probably thinking that Nelly Grey’s three hundred, and her soul to boot, could not be in better hands than those of such godly men. So, after living three weeks longer in a very bad world, the worthy testator was gathered to his fathers, and it might perhaps have been as well that his said will had been gathered along with him,—as indeed happened in a recent case, where a sensible man, probably in fear of the lawyers, got his will placed in the same coffin with him,—though no doubt he forgot that worms, if not moths, do corrupt there also, and sometimes thieves, in the shape of body-snatchers, do break through and steal. Passing all which we proceed to say that the executors entered upon their duties. As regards the other legatees they found no difficulty whatever, most probably because legatees are a kind of persons who are seldom out of the way when they are wanted. They accordingly made their appearance, and without a smile, which would have been unbecoming, got payment of their legacies. But as for this Helen Grey, with so large a sum standing at her credit, she made no token of any kind, nor did any of the relations know aught concerning her, though they wondered exceedingly who she could be, and how she came to be in so strange a place as their kinsman’s testament. Not that the three executors, the ministers, shared very deeply in this wondering, because they knew that their elder, honest Andrew, was a good and godly man, and had had good and godly, and therefore sufficient reasons, (probably in the poverty and piety of Helen,) for doing what he had done.

If indeed these gentlemen wondered at all, it was simply that any poor person living in such a place as Leith Wynd should be so regardless of money, as to fail to make her appearance among the grave and happy legatees. The question, who can she be, passed from the one to the other like a bad shilling. Not one of them could answer. Father Tron, and Father Tolbooth, and Father Trinity, were all at fault; the noses of their ingenuity could not smell out the object of their wish. But then they had been trusting so far as yet to the relatives, and had not made personal inquiry in Leith Wynd, which, if they had been men of business, they would have done at once.

“Oh,” said Father Trinity at length, “I think I have it now when I recollect there was an honest woman of that name who was a member of my congregation some years ago, and, if I am not mistaken, she was in honest Andrew Gebbie’s visiting district, and he took an interest in her soul.”

“The thing is patent,” rejoined Father Tron. “Our lamented elder hath done this good thing out of the holy charity that cometh of piety.”

“And a most beautiful example of the fruits of godliness,” added Father Tolbooth.

“Beautiful indeed!” said Trinity. “For we have here to keep in view that Elder Andrew had many poor friends, but he hath chosen to prefer the relationship of the spirit to that of mere earthly connexion. And his reward will verily be reaped in heaven.”

“We must give the good man a paragraph in the Mercury,” resumed Father Tolbooth. “And now, brother of Trinity, it will be for you to find Helen Grey out, and carry to her the glad tidings.”

“A pleasant commission,” rejoined Father Trinity, as he rose to depart.

And taking his way to Leith Wynd, he soon reached that celebrated street, nor was it long till he passed “The Happy Land,” that dreaded den of burglars, thieves, and profligate women, which the Scotch, according to their peculiar humour, had so named. That large building he behoved to pass with a sigh as the great forlorn hope of the city, and coming to some of the brokers whose shops were farther down, he procured some information which sent him up a dark close, to the end of which having got, he ascended to a garret in a back tenement, and, knocking at the door, was answered by an aged woman.

“Does Helen Grey live here?”

“Ay, sir!” replied she. “If ye ca’ living the breathing awa o’ the breath o’ life. It’s a sad thing when auld age and poverty come thegither.”

“An old saying, Helen,” replied the father. “Yet there is a third one which sanctifieth the other two, and bringeth all into harmony, peace, and love, and that is religion. But do you not know your old minister?”

“Brawly, brawly, sir,” replied she; “but the truth is, I didna like to speak first; and now, sir, I’m as proud as if I had got a fortune.”

“And so perhaps you have,” added the father. “But come, sit down. I’ve got something to say;” and having seated himself he continued. “Was Maister Andrew Gebbie, our worthy elder, in the habit of visiting you?”

“Indeed, and he did aince or twice come and see me; but never mair,” replied she. “Yet he was sae kind as to bring me the last time this book o’ psalms and paraphrases, and there’s some writing in’t which I couldna read.”

“Let me see it,” he said.

And the woman having handed him the book—

“To Mrs Janet Grey,” said the minister, as he read the inscription.

“A mistake, for my name is Helen,” said she. “But it was weel meant in Mr Gebbie, and it’s a’ the same.”

“A staff to help her on to the happy land,” continued the reverend doctor, reading.

“No ‘The Happy Land’ near bye?” interjected Helen.

“Not likely,” continued the doctor with a smile. “But I have good news for you, Helen.”

“Good news for me!” said the woman. “That must come frae an airth no within the four quarters o’ the earthly compass. I thought a’ gude news for me had ta’en wings, and floun awa to the young and the happy.”

“It seems not,” said he; “for Elder Andrew has left you a legacy of three hundred pounds.”

“Stop, stop, sir!” ejaculated the frightened legatee. “It canna be, and though it was sae, I couldna bear the grandeur. It would put out the sma’ spark o’ life that’s left in my auld heart.”

“No, no!” said he. “It is only an earthly inheritance, Helen, to keep you in ease and comfort in your declining years, till you succeed to that inheritance which knoweth no decay, and fadeth not away.”

“But is it really possible, good sir?” she continued, a little reconciled to that whereunto there is a pretty natural predisposition in human nature. “But I havena blessed Elder Andrew yet. May the Lord receive Andrew Gebbie’s soul into endless glory!”

“Amen!” said the reverend doctor. “I will speak of this again to you, Helen.”

And with these words he left the still confused woman, who would very likely still feel a difficulty in comprehending the length and breadth of the goodness of a man who had seen her only a few times, and given her a psalm-book, and called her Janet in place of Helen—a mistake he must have rectified before he made his will.

Next day the reverend doctor of Trinity had another meeting in the office of the law-agent to the trust, Mr George Crawford, whereat he recounted how he had found out the legatee; how strange it was that the poor woman was entirely ignorant of her good fortune; how grateful she was; and, above all, how strange that the saintly elder had only seen her a few times, and knew so little of her that he had made the foresaid mistake in her name. All which did seem strange to the brethren, not any one of whom would even have thought of giving more than perhaps a pound to such a person. But as the motives of men are hidden from the eyes of their fellows, and are indeed like the skins of onions, placed one above another, so they considered that all they had to do was to walk by the will.

“We have no alternative,” said Father Tron; “nor should we wish any, seeing that the money could not be better applied; for has not the son of Sirach said, ‘Give unto a godly man, and not unto a sinner.’”

“And,” added Tolbooth, “we are also commanded to give of our substance to the poor, and ‘do well unto those that are lowly.’”

“Yes,” said Father Trinity. “Mr Gebbie’s object was clear enough; it was sufficient for him that the woman was poor; therein lay his reward; and I presume we have nothing to do but to authorise Mr Crawford to pay the money.”

“Which I will do, gentlemen,” said the writer, “if you authorise me; but I frankly confess to you that I am not altogether satisfied, because I knew Mr Andrew Gebbie intimately, and, godly as he was, I can hardly think he was the man to make a comparative stranger the medium of the accumulation of compound interest to be got back in heaven. Besides, Helen Grey is so common a name, that I believe I could get several in Edinburgh; and if we were to pay to the wrong woman, you might be bound to refund out of your own stipends, which would not be a very pleasant thing.”

A speech which, touching the word stipend, brought a very grave look into the faces of the brethren.

“A most serious, yea, a momentous consideration,” said Tron, followed by the two others.

Nor had the groan got time to die away when the door opened, and there stood before them a woman of somewhere about forty, a little shabby in her apparel, though with a decayed flush of gaudy colour in it here and there; somewhat blowsy too—the tendency to the tint of the peony being more evident about the region of the nose, where there was a spot or two very clearly predisposed to the sending forth, under favourable circumstances, of a pimple; rather bold-looking in addition, even in presence of holy men who wielded the Calvinistic thunders of the day, and followed them up with the refreshing showers of grace and love.

“I understand,” said she, “that Elder Andrew Gebbie has left me a legacy o’ three hundred pounds, and I will thank you for the siller.”

On hearing which the three fathers looked at each other in amazement, and it was clear they did not like the appearance of the new claimant.

“Who are you?” said Trinity.

“Helen Grey!” replied she. “I live in Leith Wynd. Mr Andrew Gebbie and me were man and wife.”

“Where are your marriage lines?” asked Tron.

“I hae nane,” replied she. “It was a marriage by giving and taking between ourselves—a gude marriage by the law.”

“And no witnesses?” said Tron.

“The deil ane but the Lord.”

“Wh-e-w!” whistled Father Tron, not audibly, only as it were within the mouth.

“It is very true,” said Father Trinity, as he looked askance at the claimant, and contrasted her in his mind with the other Nelly, who he was satisfied was the real Nelly Pure, “that Mr Andrew Gebbie left that sum of money to a certain Helen Grey, but we have no evidence to show that you are the right woman.”

“The right woman!” ejaculated she, with a bold laugh; “and how could I be the wrong ane, when I cut Andrew Gebbie’s corns for ten years?”

“Oh, a chiropodist!” said Father Tron.

“I’m nae corn-doctor, sir,” replied she, with something like offended pride: “I never cut another man’s corns in my life.”

“We are nearly getting into that lightness of speech which betokeneth vanity,” said another of the brethren. “It is a serious matter; and we must require of you, Mrs Grey—seeing that the marriage cannot, even by your own statement, be taken into account, for want of evidence—to prove that you were upon such terms of friendship with Mr Gebbie as to make it probable that he would leave you this large sum of money.”

“Friendship!” cried the woman again. “Ay, for ten years, and wha can tell where the flee may stang? It was nae mair than he should have dune. I am Helen Grey, and I insist upon my rights.”

“But,” said Father Trinity, “there is another Helen Grey in Leith Wynd, with whom Mr Gebbie was acquainted, and to whom he made a present of a psalm-book.”

“And did he no gie me a psalm-book too!” quoth the woman. “I have it at hame, and you are welcome to see my name on’t written by the elder’s ain hand. But did this second Helen Grey cut the good elder’s corns for ten lang years, I wonder? Tell me that, gentlemen, and I’ll tell you something mair that will make your ears ring as they never did at a psalm.”

“Still this irreverend nonsense about corns: woman, are you mad?” said Tron. “Give us the names of respectable people who knew of this asserted friendship between you and the deceased elder.”

“The deil ane kent o’t, sir, but ourselves!” was the sharp answer of the woman. “And if it comes to that, I can prove naething; but I tell you there’s mair in the corns than ye wot.”

“Oh! she wants to prove the footing she was on with Mr Gebbie,” punned Mr Crawford with a laugh, and the grave brethren could not help joining in what Tron called a fine example of the figure called paronomasia.

“That’s just it,” said the woman. “I will prove that I knew the length o’ his big tae, and may be mair.”

“And what more?” asked Father Tron.

“That Mr Gebbie had six toes on his left foot!” answered she.

“And what of that?” inquired the agent, as he pricked up his ears at what might turn out a more special means of knowledge than they were dreaming of.

“A great deal,” continued the woman. “Sae muckle that I need nae mair, for be it kenned to ye that Mr Gebbie was aye ashamed o’ what he thought a deformity, and concealed it from a’ living mortals except me. If ye’ll prove that there’s anither person in a’ Edinburgh, in Scotland, or in the hail world, wha kens that Elder Andrew had six toes on his left foot, I’ll give up a’ right to the three hundred pounds!”

“So there is something in the corns after all,” whispered Mr Crawford to Trinity, and the others hearing the remark began to think, and think, and look at each other, as if they felt that the woman had fairly shut them up to a test of her truthfulness easily applied. So telling her to call back next day at the same hour, they requested her to leave them. And after she was gone, the four gentlemen began gradually to relax from their gravity as they saw the ingenuity of the woman, for it was quite apparent that if it should turn out that no one—servant, relative, or doctor—could tell this wonderful fact about the six toes of their own knowledge, however derived, and that this Helen Grey was the sole confidential custodier thereof—the conclusion was all but certain that she knew it by being intrusted with the cutting of the holy man’s corns, as she had asserted. And a confidence of this kind, (setting aside the irregular marriage,) implied a friendship so close as to justify the legacy. What in the meantime remained to be done was for the agent to see any persons connected with the elder’s household who were likely to know the fact, and being an honourable man he behoved to do this without what is called a leading question.

Accordingly, that same afternoon Mr Crawford busied himself to the effect of having seen the good elder’s housekeeper, as well as the doctor who had attended him upon his last illness, with perhaps a dozen of other likely people, such as the other legatees and relations, all of whom were entirely ignorant of the fact set forth by the woman, viz., that Mr Gebbie had six toes on his left foot. And next day the trustees met again, when Mr Crawford told them, before touching on the corns, that an agent had called upon him from the other Helen first seen, demanding payment to her. He then told the trustees the result of his inquiries—that not a single person of all he had seen knew anything of the abnormal foot. At this the clergymen wondered more and more, and how long they might have sat there and wondered it might have been difficult to say, had it not been for an ingenious idea started by Tron, and suggested by the old story about King Charles and the fish in the bucket of water.

“The woman is laughing at us,” said he, “and we are inquiring whether certain people knew a fact without making ourselves acquainted with the prior fact, whether that prior fact had ever any existence except in the brain of this bad woman, whose evidence goes to traduce the character of a holy elder of the Church of Scotland.”

The brethren again laughed at this ingenious discovery of Father Tron’s, and thereupon began to veer round in favour of good Nelly prima. In a few minutes more entered Blowsabel again, holding in her hand a psalm-book with some words of an inscription on it in the handwriting of the elder, but subscribed “a friend,” whereas, as the reader may recollect, the inscription in the book given to the first Helen, (with the misnomer of Janet,) was in the name of Andrew Gebbie—a fact rather in favour of Nelly secunda, insomuch as it harmonised with her statement that the friendship between the elder and her had been kept a secret known only to themselves.

“That goes for what it’s worth,” said she, as she received back the book. “And now,” she continued, addressing Mr Crawford, “you can tell me whether you were able to find, within the hail o’ Edinburgh, a single person who knew that Elder Andrew had six taes on his left foot.”

“I have found no one,” was the answer, “for the good reason that Andrew Gebbie had no more toes on his left foot than you yourself have on yours.”

Whereupon Helen secunda burst out into a laugh. After which, said she, “I will prove it, as sure as I am a living woman!”

“The man is dead and buried!” replied Mr Crawford, with a voice of triumph.

“That makes nae difference,” said she; “unless it be that the worms have eaten awa the sixth tae; and, by my faith, I’ll see to it!”

And with these words she went away, leaving the trustees in as great a difficulty as ever. Nor had she been long gone when a man of the name of Marshall, the procurator who had taken up the case of the first Helen, entered and said, “he had got evidence to show that a neighbour, who had been present at the last interview between the elder and his client, had heard the worthy man declare, that he had been moved to pity by her age and poverty, and had promised to do something for her, to enable her to pass her remaining years in comfort.”

“But,” said the agent, “there is, I am sorry to say, another Helen in the field; and you must drive her off before we can pay your client the money.”

“And I know who she is,” was the answer. “That woman’s word is not to be relied upon; for she is what she is.” And then he added, “I am determined to see justice done to my client—who, at least, is an honest woman.”

“Now you see, gentlemen,” said Mr Crawford, after the first Helen’s agent had departed—“you see how this extraordinary affair stands. The two claimants are determined to fight it out: so that, if you pay the money to the good woman, you will, as I said before, run a risk of being obliged to pay the other one afterwards out of your stipends.”

“Our stipends are the holy tenths, set apart to the work of the Lord from the beginning of the world,” answered the brethren, “and cannot be touched, except by sacrilegious hands!”

“Then,” continued the agent, “there is only one thing we can do; and that is, to throw the case into court by what we call a multiplepoinding, and let the claimants fight against each other.”

A proposition this to which the trustees felt themselves bound to agree, though with very much reluctance; for they saw that the case would become public, and there would be ill-disposed people that would be inclined to put a false construction upon the motives of the worthy elder of Trinity. But then, to comfort them, they felt assured that the story of the toes was a pure invention; and the elder being buried, there was no possibility of proving the same.

Whereupon the meeting separated. Next day Mr Crawford commenced his law proceedings; and in due time, a record having been prepared, the advocates behoved to plead the causes of their respective clients.

Then stood up Mr Anderson, the advocate of the first Helen, and said:—

“Your lordships must see that—if you lay out of view as a mere invention, which it is, the story of the six toes—the preponderance of the evidence lies with my client. There is a psalm-book in each case; but mine has the name of the testator to the inscription: and you have, in addition, the testimony of one respectable person who heard Mr Gebbie declare his intention to enable this poor old woman to live. On the other side you have no evidence whatever that the elder ever set his foot—corns or no corns—on the floor of the Helen secunda. There was no such footing of intimacy as that contended for on the other side; and that I am justified in calling the story of the six toes an invention will appear when I say that, according to the authority of learned men, a lusus naturæ of this kind does not occur once in ten thousand births: so that it is ten thousand to one against the assumption. In addition, there is the character of the deceased, whose whole life and conversation are against the presumption that he would go to Leith Wynd, and get a woman of doubtful character to operate upon a foot of which he is said to have been ashamed. For all which reasons I claim the three hundred pounds for my client.”

Then stood up Mr Sharp, the advocate of the second Helen, and said:—

“It is no wonder at all why my learned friend has a difficulty about his locus standi, seeing he is so delicate about the feet. I feel no delicacy on that fundamental point. And it is because my corns of legal right and justice are pared that I stand here with so much ease, and assert that Mr Gebbie having imparted to my client a secret which he never communicated to living mortal besides, that secret could only have been the result of an intimacy and confidence sufficient to justify this legacy in her favour of three hundred pounds. My friend says, that there are many chances against such a freak of nature as six toes. That is true. But he confounds the thing with the assertion of the thing. And were there not a presumption in favour of a person speaking the truth rather than falsehood, what would become of that testimony which is the foundation of our holy religion, not less than of the decisions of our courts of justice? But it is in the power of this court to ascertain the truth of my assertion. The body of the worthy elder can be exhumed; and if it shall appear that it has six toes on the left foot, the presumption of the intimacy of friendship which will justify the legacy is complete. On the other side there is no such presumption. The elder only visited the first Helen once or twice, and what was to induce him to leave her so large a sum to the deprivation of his poor relations?”

Then the President spoke as follows:—

“It appears to the Court that, in this very extraordinary case, we never can get at the truth without testing, by proof, the statement made by the second Helen in regard to the six toes, because if it is really a fact that the testator carried this number on his left foot, and by parity that that number carried him, it is impossible to get quit of the presumption that the fact was communicated confidentially when the operation of paring was resorted to; and as confidence implies friendship, and friendship intimacy, we must assume that there must have been such an amount of mutual liking on the part of these individuals as would justify the legacy which is the subject-matter of this multiplepoinding. The Court will therefore issue an order for the exhumation of the body of Andrew Gebbie, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the testator’s foot was formed in the manner asserted by the claimant.”

The commission was accordingly issued. The body of the elder was examined as it lay in the coffin, and the result of the examination, as stated in the report, was: “That the left foot was furnished with six toes, the sixth or supernumerary one being much smaller than the one next to it. It also appeared that the toes of this foot were supplied with a number of very hard corns, which bore the marks of having been often pared by some very careful hand.”

Whereupon the case was again taken up, when judgment was given for the second Helen, who was thus remarkably well paid for her attention to the corns of the worthy elder. When the decision was reported to the reverend executors, Father Tron shook his head with great gravity, Tolbooth did the same, and so did Trinity: nay, they all shook their heads at the same time: but what they intended to signify thereby was never known, for the reason that it was never declared.