Sympathising Sextons, Doctors, and Relatives.
All forces are measured by opposition, as, indeed, all the phenomena of nature are known to us by comparison, and so, in all fairness, we must estimate the turpitude of the professors and students the more lightly, in proportion to their freedom from all endearing feelings of recognition or friendship towards those whose remains came within their studies. The same metre is due to the class of purveyors, and Heaven knows how much, after all this abatement, remained at their debit, cognisant as they behoved to be of the certainty that they were sowing the bitter seeds of misery throughout the land. But what are we to say of others—doctors in the country who were privy to the remunerated exhumation of their patients—sextons who gave the pregnant hint, and then went to sleep in the expectation of a fee in the morning—nay, of those, and such at that time were counted among human beings, who bartered their friends and relatives for a smile of mammon?
Out of these materials how easy could it be to add so much, and so many more darker shades to the picture. We have no great wish to lay them on either thick or thin—the mind will paint for itself, as rises the contemplation: the family doctor hanging over his patient with professional sympathy, and perhaps something finer, dreaming the while of a post-obit fee, in addition to that paid for his skill to cure—the sexton clapping down the sod over a companion who had often set the table in a roar, in which the grave official had joined, and meditating a resurrection through his means in the morning—the relative who had even got the length of tears, dropping them on the pale face of an old friend, all the while that he meditated a sale of the body. But it is true that the annals of the period justified all these grim pictures. Many will still recollect the young Irish doctor who went in the Square under the name of the “Captain”—a man of such infinite spirits, always in a flow of his country’s humour, that you could not suppose that there was time or room in his mind for a little smooth pool to reflect a passing cloud of sadness. In his native town he drove a great trade for the Edinburgh halls—his largest contribution being laid on the graveyard of his native town. And surely, in his case, we would have thought the Chinese system of paying a doctor, only in the case of recovery, would have been an example of Irish prudence. Nay, so many were the barrels, with a peculiar species of contenu, he sent by Leith, that it was difficult to avoid the suspicion that the rollicking son of Erin had a faith in his medicines stronger than the hope which illumined the faces of his patients. These barrels of the “Captain” were quite well known, not only to the skippers, but the porters about the pier, ay, even the carters who made the final transport; and here, again, mammon was the seducing spirit. It was only when he came over for his large accumulated payments that he was seen in the hall, where his jokes and immeasurable laughter might have made those quiet heads on the tables rise to get a look of their once sympathising surgeon. Nor, in the consideration of the students, was his laughter unjustified by his jokes; as once where, pointing to a certain table, he apostrophised the burden it carried—“Ah, Misthress O’Neil! did I spare the whisky on you, which you loved so well,—and didn’t you lave me a purty little sum to keep the resurrectionists away from you,—and didn’t I take care of you myself? and by J——s you are there, and don’t thank me for coming over to see you;” or when, in the same brogue, he told them that, not long before his coming over, he had, for lack of “the thing” in his own town, taken a car and rode to a neighbouring village, where he got precisely what he wanted; that, on returning at a rapid rate with his charge, he met the mother of it with the words in her mouth—
“Well, docther, is it all right wid the grave ov poor Pat?”
“All right, misthress. Didn’t I tell you afore there were no resurrectionists in that quarter?”
“And you are sure you eximined it complately?”
“No doubt in the wide earth.”
“Then I may go back, and you’ll give me a ride?”
“Surely, and plaisant,” said he; “just get up.”
“And,” continued the Captain to the delighted students, “I dhrove the good lady home agin without breaking a bone of her body, and Pat never said a word.”
“But,” he went on, “if I were to tell you all my Irish work, I would never get back to my ould country agin.”
“Just another adventure, Captain.”
“Well, then, didn’t a purty young girl—and I have hopes of her yet for myself, for she has money galore—come to me one day in a mighty fit of grief?”
“‘My poor mother has been rizzt,’ said she, as she burst out in the way of these gentle craturs.
“‘And she has not,’ said I—(the more by token that I had the ould lady in the house.)
“‘I have been at the grave,’ said she, ‘and I see it has been disturbed.’
“‘And it has not,’ said I; ‘for wasn’t I there this morning before ever a soul in all the town was stirring? and didn’t I leave it all right with my ould friend?’
“‘But I have seen marks,’ said she again; for she was so determined.
“‘And do you think I don’t know you have?’ said I; ‘and didn’t I see them, after I got a spade from the sexton and put on a nate sod or two more to make the grave dacent and respectable?’
“‘Oh, I’m so glad,’ replied she, all of a content.
“‘And you’ll be gladder yet, my darling,’ said I, as I gave her a kiss. ‘Go home and contint yourself, and perhaps, when your mournings are off, you may consent to make a poor docther happy.’
“And so she went away, blushing as no one ever saw except in a raal rose.”
And the laugh again sounded through the hall among the dead.
Whether these stories were true, or merely got up by the extravagant love of fun in the Captain, it would not be easy to say; but certain it is, that their being told and responded to in the manner thus described, from the lips of an ear-witness, shews us the atmosphere of moral feeling that then obtained in places proudly designated as being dedicated to the interests of humanity, and from which, too, we could draw the conclusion that what was gained in the amelioration of physical disease was required to be debited so largely with the deterioration of morals and a wide-spread infliction of pain. But even darker deeds were done in Scotland than those for which the Captain took so gasconading a credit. From a certain village called S——e, the myrmidons of the Square, and particularly the “Spune,” got more material for the Hall than could have been expected without a resident sympathiser and participator in the profits. That zealous correspondent was not the sexton—no, nor the minister; but he was the minister’s brother, and, so far as we can learn, a member of the profession. Need it be remarked how convenient the relation between the messenger of heaven and the benefactor of earth—the physician of souls and the curer of bodies—the man of prayers and the man of pills—the distributor of the great catholicon and the dispenser of the small! We can fancy the godly man, we believe all unconscious of the intentions of his brother, pouring the holy unction of his prayers over the struggling spirit of the dying Christian, and the doctor counting the pulses as they died away into that stillness which was to be the prelude to the payment—five pounds—for the deserted temple. One recording angel would fly to heaven with a name to be inscribed in the roll of eternal salvation, and the other to Edinburgh to announce that another body was to be inserted in the black list of Surgeon’s Square.
Even this was not the culmination of the evil. The head of the scorpion—society—was to swallow its tail, so that the virtue and the poison would meet and traverse together the circle. Mammon, through the medium of the leaders of the purveyors of science, extended his charm to the hearts of relations and friends, changing the soft glance of love and pity into the fiery glare of sordid rapacity. Throughout the High Street and Canongate, and down through the squalid wynds and closes, where, though crime and misery shake hands over the bottle of whisky, the death-bed still retains some claims over the affections, and where religion is sometimes able to extort from the demons of passion the unwilling tribute of compunction, these strange men prowled in the hope of finding or making a monster. And in this it is certain that they succeeded more often than was then suspected, or is even yet known. Their first inquiry was for death-beds, and the next for evidence of squalid poverty combined with vice. The subject was approached cautiously where the ground had all the appearance of being dangerous. If they were met by deliberation or hesitation, between which and blows there was no space, their object was secured, as the devil’s is, by exposing to the haggard eye of penury the very form and substance of the bribe. In one case, reported by Merrylees himself, the bargain was struck in a whisper by the bed-side of the dying friend. How far the relationship extended in any of these cases we never could ascertain; and it is only fair to assume, for the sake of human nature, that in the majority of instances the success was only over the keepers of stray lodgers, and mere friends, as distinguished from relatives; but that there were, some where there behoved to be the yearnings of affection, and a consequent struggle between love and mammon, there can be no doubt.
Thus, however difficult or delicate the moral impediments that required to be overcome, the physical parts of the contract were of easy management. The coffining was made a little ceremony, performed in presence of some of the neighbours. There would be tears, no doubt, if not an Irish howl, and the louder perhaps the greater the bribe; and in the evening a bag of tanners’ bark supplied the place of the friend of the many virtues discoursed of at the wake. Nor was there less care taken in carrying this box of bark to the Canongate burying-ground than was displayed by “Merry-Andrew” in conveying the surrogatum to Surgeon’s Square; but, of course, there would be a difference in the speed of the respective bearers. Taking all these details into account, we can scarcely deny that these men wrought harder for their money than if they had pursued a regular calling. But, then, they liked it. Even after the bargain for the living invalid was struck, how many anxious watchings at a wynd-end were to exhaust the weary hours before the spirit took wing from the sold body! The gaunt figure of Merrylees, as he jerked his lank muscles and threw his face into the old contortions, might be seen there, but none would know what this meant.
One night, a student who saw him standing at a close-end, and suspected that his friend was watching his prey, whispered in his ear, “She’s dead,” and, aided by the darkness, escaped. In a moment after, “Merry-Andrew” shot down the wynd, and, opening the door, pushed his lugubrious face into a house.
“It’s a’ owre I hear,” said he, in a loud whisper; “and when will we come for the body?”
“Whisht, ye mongrel,” replied the old harridan who acted as nurse; “she’s as lively as a cricket.”
A statement which, though whispered in the unction of secresy, and with most evident sincerity, Merrylees doubted, under a suspicion that the woman’s conscience had come between her and the love of money; and, jerking himself forward to the bed, he threw the shadow of his revolting countenance over the face of the terrified invalid, enough of itself to have sent the hovering spirit to its destination, whether above or below. Not a word was spoken by the victim. She had heard enough to rouse terror sufficient to deprive her of speech, if not of breath; and all that the ogre witnessed was the pair of eyes lighted up with the parting rays of the fluttering spirit, and peering mysteriously as if into his very soul.
But then, as it happened, “Merry-Andrew” had only a body, and this look, more like as it was to a phosphoric gleam than the light of the living spirit, fell blank. Enough for him that she was not yet dead; and, taking one of his springing steps, he was out of the room, forcing his way up the wynd, to seek, and, if possible, to wreak a most imprudent vengeance on the larking prig who had put his long muscles to such unfruitful exercise. Meanwhile, the young rogue had waited for the butt, to see some more of his picturesque spasms; nor was he disappointed, for the moment Merrylees cast his eye on him, he tossed up his hands, and, with a shout which might have been taken by one who did not know him, or even by one who did, as an indication either of intense fun or fiery anger, made after him at the rate of his long strides. The student, of course, escaped, and Merrylees, convinced that the invalid was not so near her end as he wished, went growling home to bed.
But this tragedy, with its ephialtic forms reflecting these coruscations of grim comedy, did not end here. The old invalid, no doubt hastened by what she had witnessed, died on the following night; and on that after the next succeeding, when he had reason to expect that she would be conveniently placed in that white fir receptacle that has a shape so peculiarly its own, and not deemed by him so artistic as that of a bag or a box, Merrylees, accompanied by the “Spune,” entered the dead room with the sackful of bark. To their astonishment, and what Merrylees even called disgusting to an honourable mind, the old wretch had scruples.
“A light has come doon upon me frae heaven,” she said, “and I canna.”
“Light frae heaven!” said Merrylees indignantly. “Will that shew the doctors how to cut a cancer out o’ ye, ye auld fule? But we’ll sune put out that light,” he whispered to his companion. “Awa’ and bring in a half-mutchkin.”
“Ay,” replied the “Spune,” as he got hold of a bottle, “we are only obeying the will o’ God. ‘Man’s infirmities shall verily be cured by the light o’ His wisdom.’ I forget the text.”
And the “Spune,” proud of his biblical learning, went upon his mission. He was back in a few minutes; for where in Scotland is whisky not easily got?
Then Merrylees, (as he used to tell the story to some of the students, to which we cannot be expected to be strictly true as regards every act or word,) filling out a glass, handed it to the wavering witch.
“Tak’ ye that,” he said, “and it will drive the deevil out o’ ye.”
And finding that she easily complied, he filled out another, which went in the same direction with no less relish.
“And noo,” said he, as he saw her scruples melting in the liquid fire, and took out a pound-note, which he held between her face and the candle, “look through that, ye auld deevil, and ye’ll see some o’ the real light o’ heaven that will mak’ your cats’ een reel.”
“But that’s only ane,” said the now-wavering merchant, “and ye ken ye promised three.”
“And here they are,” replied he, as he held before her the money to the amount of which she had only had an experience in her dreams, and which reduced her staggering reason to a vestige.
“Weel,” she at length said, “ye may tak’ her.”
And all things thus bade fair for the completion of the barter, when the men, and scarcely less the woman, were startled by a knock at the door, which having been opened, to the dismay of the purchasers there entered a person, dressed in a loose great-coat, with a broad bonnet on his head, and a thick cravat round his throat, so broad as to conceal a part of his face.
“Mrs Wilson is dead?” said the stranger, as he approached the bed.
“Ay,” replied the woman, from whom even the whisky could not keep off an ague of fear.
“I am her nephew,” continued the stranger, “and I am come to pay the last duties of affection to one who was kind to me when I was a boy. Can I see her?”
“Ay,” said the woman; “she’s no screwed doon yet.”
Enough for “Merry-Andrew” and the “Spune.” They were off, and up the wynd in a moment, followed by the stranger, who, for some reason that has not in the story yet appeared, gave them chase, only so much as to terrify them into a flight, but without being carried so far as to insure a seizure, which he did not seem inclined to achieve. Nor did he return to bury Mrs Wilson—a strange mystery to the unnatural nurse, who, however, did not lose all, for the three pounds had been left on the table, and were quickly appropriated without the least consideration.
The story next day went the round of the hall; and it was not until the woman was buried, that Merrylees and his friend were made aware that the same student who had played the principal performer at the head of the wynd was the stranger in a very well-assorted disguise.