I had taken a large liberty, and I must take a larger to justify the first. I had provided myself with some of Mrs M‘G——r’s marks—the lady in Minto Street—so I straightway began to turn out the fine poplins and silks, which overlaid the jewellery at the bottom, till I could find a handkerchief or some article bearing a name, and that I very soon did, in a damask towel, bearing “M‘G. 6.” I was now relieved from all fears of a misused freedom.
“All right,” said I.
And going to the door, I called on my men. There was here a little mismanagement. They were not so close as they should have been, and M‘Sally and Stewart, the real burglars, getting desperate, jostled the first officer, and pushing him up against the wall, escaped; nor were the other men sufficiently on the alert to be able to intercept them, so that they got themselves reserved, as it were, for a fate which is the real burden of my story.
The trunk, and all the remaining members of the gang, were straightway under better keeping than that of Mr Sim, who considered all so right; but I had to lament the want of my chiefs, the very men on whom my mind was set, and for whom I would have given the whole contents of the locker; but I was not to be done out of them by a mere flight, which did not exclude me from a long shot, and that shot I proceeded to prepare. The prior history of M‘Sally enabled me to suspect that he was away down by the east coast to get to London, and I had no doubt Stewart would accompany him, so I straightway got the Lieutenant to forward their portraits to Berwick-on-Tweed, Newcastle, and Shields, with directions to the different Lieutenants to seize and send them back to Edinburgh, where they were specially wanted. As matters turned out, this was a happy suggestion, and proved a comfort to me after my distress.
My gentlemen, just as I suspected, had made their way down to Berwick, with very little money as it appeared, yet with such a locker at home, upon which they had expected to live and feast for many months, (alas, the vanity of human wishes!) and arrived there pretty late at night. They, of course, wanted lodgings, and why should they not get them for nothing, where the philanthropic people of the old town, reversing their former fire-eating character, had prepared the town-hall, of ancient renown for bellicose orations, as a place of refuge for the destitute. The two refugees were even in their misfortunes inclined to be humorous, and took it into their heads to act the part of industrious “tramps,” travelling to the south in search of work, and apply for a night’s lodging at the very town-hall itself. But who had the privilege of giving out the tickets? Why, who better qualified than the Superintendent of Police himself, who could, from his office, make the proper distinction between the really deserving applicants, and those to whom a jail was a more fitting place of abode? And so it was the Superintendent had the charge of the house of refuge as well as the house of bondage. They had run away for housebreaking, and escaped the fiend M‘Levy, and there was a neat squareness in playing off a trick upon his brother of Berwick. A glimpse of the sunshine of fun comes well after the gloom of misfortune; besides, sweet is refuge to the houseless; and then a supper and a breakfast was not to be despised.
They were accordingly soon brought before the dispenser of refuge and justice, who was busy at the time scanning a paper.
“Poor workmen, sir, going south in search of work,” said M‘Sally; “would your honour pass us to the town-hall?”
“Where from?” said the Superintendent.
“Aberdeen.”
“Your names?”