This story was very soon made readable to Liston and the others by the concatenation of certain very simple circumstances. A newspaper report which Liston had seen some days before, had announced the death, by drowning, of a young sailor belonging to Limekilns. The account was sufficiently lugubrious for any readers; but the editor, as usual, had mixed up with it, whether truly or not, the old story of love and impending marriage; the object too being, of course, young, brave, virtuous, and comely. Then came the account of the funeral, also touchingly given. But it seemed that all this poetry had been thrown away upon the ardent anatomist; nor even when afterwards, in the hall, he became satisfied that he had secured the right object, would he in his heart admit that he had in this adventure done anything more than would be justified by the use he could make of his knowledge in ameliorating physical evils in his fellow-men, however dearly that advantage might have been acquired in the agony of that figure he had left wailing at Rosyth. Yet it is but fair to say that Liston himself admitted that the sound of that cry, the sight of those wringing hands, and the rapid goings to and fro of the shade on the shore, never passed from his memory.
Robert Liston, beyond all the others, carried so much of the spirit of chivalry into his adventures of body-snatching, that he thought it as noble an act to carry off a corpse as an ancient knight-errant did to bear off a prisoner; but his followers were more like mimallons than myrmidons, and required more of the flask to keep up their spirits. Some of these youths once made a mistake at Rosyth. Having run up their boat, they proceeded to the little death’s croft to take up the body of a woman who had died in child-bed. The night was dark and gusty, and the wind whistled through the long grass as if Nænia had been presiding there to hear her own doleful music; but our youths cared little for these things, and, after twenty minutes’ work, they pulled up “the tall beauty,” as they called her after they got home. Away they hurried her to the dike, upon which they laid her, till two got over to place her in the boat. All seemed fair, but just at the moment, some ill-mannered tyke set up, without the excuse of a moon,—for she was far enough away beyond the shadows,—a deep howl, so prolonged and mournful, that even all the potency of the flask could not save them from being struck with awe, as well as a fear of detection. But they had more to be afraid of, for almost immediately after, one of them called out, “There’s a lantern among the graves;” and thus flurried, yet determined not to lose their prize, they rugged the body from the top of the rubble dike so roughly, if not violently, that a great portion of the long hair, which had got entangled among the stones, was, along with a piece of the scalp, torn away, and left hanging on the other side. Safe on board, they lost no time in pushing off, in spite of the surly breakers that threatened to detain them; nor did they now care for either the dog or the lantern, the latter of which they saw through the dark medium, dodging towards the very spot they had left, and then remain stationary there, as if the bearer had been stayed and petrified by the relic they had left. Up to not a very late period, the story went in the neighbourhood that he who bore the lantern was the husband of “the tall beauty,” and that he discovered the hair, and knew from the colour, which nearly approached flaxen, that it was that of his wife, whose untimely death had rendered him frantic.
There was no loss in that case; but another which was current among the classes not long after was less fortunate, though not less true, as indeed may be verified by the brother, still living, of the young student who figured in it. Somewhere about Gilmerton or Liberton, we are uncertain which, a small farmer who had lost his wife went out one morning very early, probably because he could not rest in his bed for the dreary blank that was there,—that negative so much more appalling to love than the dead positive. On going along the Edinburgh road, he observed some white figure lying close by the footpath, and making up to see what it was, he came upon the corpse of a woman, dressed in her scolloped dead-clothes, and lying extended upon her back, with the “starr eyes” open, glazed, and fixed. On looking more narrowly, he discovered that it was his own wife, and, all dismayed and wild as he became, he could still have the power to think that she had come back to life after having been buried and lain in the grave for three days, and had thus far struggled to get to her beloved home. Frenzy knows nothing of logic, and was he to think how she could have thrown off a ton of earth and got up again to the light of the sun? The idea took him by force, and, throwing himself upon the body, he looked into the dead orbs, and watched the cold stiff lips, and listened for a breath. Vain heart, with all its hopes and tumults! no sign in return for all this madness. Yet he persevered, and gave up, and resumed, and, as the hope died to come back again, he writhed his strong body in an agony tenfold more acute than his first grief; nor would he in all probability have renounced the insane hope for a much longer time, if the Penicuik carrier had not come up, and, hearing the wonderful tale, hinted the explanation of an interrupted body-snatching. The light flashed upon him in an instant, and, in pursuance of a desire to keep the occurrence secret for the sake of her friends, he prevailed upon the man to take the body in the cart and remove it to his house. It was buried again privately on the following night, and few ever heard of the occurrence. And now comes the explanation of a story which may seem altogether incredible. A young student of the name of F——y, belonging to Monro’s class, entered with two others into an adventure of body-snatching, in imitation of those whose exploits had produced in them an enthusiasm untempered by prudence, and not directed by experience. They fixed upon their ground, and hired a gig, and the hour was regulated by an obituary. Away accordingly they set, with no more knowledge of the secrets of the art than what they could get from the regular purveyors of the class, but provided with the necessary instrument. They soon got to their destination, and, leaving the gig in the charge of one of them, the two others got over the low wall, and, by the aid of the moon, discovered the last laid turf. Going to work vigorously, they succeeded in raising the body of a woman, but not having brought from the gig the indispensable sack, and, being fluttered and hurried, they bethought themselves of carrying the object to the side of the road, just as it was with the dead-clothes, and then running along by the side of the hedge to where their companion waited. F——y accordingly, with the aid of his friend, got the white burden hoisted on his back, holding it as firmly as he could by the linen. So far all was well, and they were fortunate, moreover, in getting out by a gate which they could open; but just as F——y got to the road, along which he had to go a considerable space, the grasp he had of the shroud began to give way, perhaps almost unknown to himself, the effect of which was that the body slipped so far down that the feet touched the ground. The consequence was altogether peculiar; as F——y bent and dodged in the hurry of getting forward, the feet of the corpse, coming always to the ground, resiled again with something like elasticity, so that it appeared to him as if it trotted or leaped behind him. Fear is the mother of suspicion, and the idea took hold of him that the body was alive. He uttered a roar,—threw his burden off, and crying out to his friend, “By G——, she’s alive!” jumped into the gig. His friend was taken by the same terror, and away they galloped, leaving the corpse in the place where it was found next morning by the husband.
The Regular Staff.
It is, we think, laid down in that strange book of Robert Forsyth’s on morals, that the gratification of the desire of knowledge is, at least on this earth of ours, the true end of man; and, no doubt, were we to judge of the strength of this desire in forcing man down into the bowels of the earth, and up into the heavens, across unknown seas, and over equally unknown continents, we would not be slow to confess its great power. And yet how many there are who assign the same place to the power of mammon, while others stand up for love and the social affections! We will not presume to decide where the range goes from the things of earth to those of heaven; but it appears pretty certain that there have been a good many Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpes, who have lauded, while in health, the practice of leaving the body to the doctors, and who yet have shrunk from the personal example when the shadow of the dark angel was over them. There have been also, we suspect, fewer Jeremy Benthams, who actually have left their carrion to the vultures of science, than of Merryleeses, who have robbed churchyards, and sold the stolen article for money.[4] Nor, in estimating the motives of the few scientific testators, can we say that we have much belief in their professions, if it is not more true that they are only seekers of notoriety, sometimes, as in the case of the author of the Fallacies, so weak as to be bribed by the offer of having their skins tanned and distributed in slips—the skin being, in such instances, the most valuable part of their corporations.
In pursuance of these notions, we may safely infer that if the wants of the halls had been left to be supplied by the scientific zeal of the amateurs, the state of anatomy would have been less perfect than we find it under the auspices of such men as Schwann, or Bell, or Hall, in our day. And we say this without being much satisfied that all the boasted discoveries have led to much more than the conviction that we get deeper and deeper into the dark, while—admitting many ameliorations—the people recover from operations, or die of diseases, very much as they used to do. What are called the high cases might very well be left alone, so that we might be still bound to admit that Nature’s purpose, in imposing the sacred feeling for the dead, is consistent with her determination, that if in this defeated by man, he shall earn nothing by trying to get at her secrets. But there was no necessity that the matter of purveyance should be left to the students. There have always been body-thieves; but the time had come in Scotland, when not only their number behoved to be increased, but their energies also, by the multiplied demands of the halls.
How far this increase might have progressed, but for the great drama of “The Scotch Court of Cacus,” it is impossible to say; but for a time the staff of Knox’s artists were rather put upon their wits and exertions, than increased by dangerous bunglers. The trade was perilous, and required attributes not very often found united,—a total bluntness of feeling, a certain amount of low courage, much ingenuity of device, clever personal handling, and total disregard of public opinion—the love of money being the governing stimulant. Few classes of men could have afforded a better study in the lower and grosser parts of human nature. There was one called Merrylees, or more often Merry-Andrew, a great favourite with the students. Of gigantic height, he was thin and gaunt, even to ridiculousness, with a long pale face, and the jaws of an ogre. His shabby clothes, no doubt made for some tall person of proportionate girth, hung upon his sharp joints, more as if they had been placed there to dry than to clothe and keep warm. Nor less grotesque were the motions and gestures of this strange being. It seemed as if he went upon springs, and even the muscles of his face, as they passed from the grin of idiot pleasure to the scowl of anger, seemed to obey a similar power. Every movement was a spasm, as if the long lank muscles, unable to effect a contraction through such a length, accomplished their object by the concentrated energy of violent snatches. So, too, with the moral part: the normal but grotesque gravity was only to be disturbed by some sudden access of passion, which made him toss his arms and gesticulate. So completely was he the cause of fun in others, that often on the street some larking student would cry out, “Merry-Andrew,” for no other purpose than to see him wheel about, clench his hands, and throw his face into all manner of furious contortions. All this only conspired to make him a butt, and the loud laugh which always came when there was nothing to laugh at, or rather something which would have produced gravity in another, helped the consummation.
Yet withal this same idiot was the king of Knox’s artists. Nothing dared him, and nothing shamed him, if he was not even proud of a profession which was patronised by gentlemen and men of science, and paid at a rate which might have put industrious and honest tradesmen to the blush. Like many other half simpletons, too, he had a fertility of device in attaining his object, which insured success, when others apparently more intelligent despaired. So he was a leader upon whom often depended the hopes of the students, when their material was scarce or awanting. When not engaged in his rural exploits, he was always hanging about the Infirmary, where, no doubt, he was in secret communication with the élèves of that institution connected with Knox’s rooms. From these he got intelligence of likely deaths, where there was a chance of the persons not being soon claimed by their relatives. Now was the opportunity of this genius. He kept a brown black suit for the occasion of a mourner, repaired to the Infirmary, and acted the part of the relative to such perfection, that the nurses at least—for the medical men could wink—were deceived. Nay, he looked at all times so much the afflicted, that the personation even to something like tears was as easy to him as to the weeper in the House of Commons, who cried “like a crocodile with his hands in his breeches’ pockets.” The moment the body was got outside in the white coffin, the bearers actually ran with it to the hall, under the inspiration of the, to such glandered hacks in the shape of men, so enormous a reward.