Was ever bride taken away without the “stirrup-cup,” even a glass of her own wine?
But no, it wouldn’t do. Elizabeth would neither take nor give, and so I, too, went without my glass.
“Keep the house,” said I to my assistant, “till I return. I will post the constables at the foot of the stairs.”
And, taking Elizabeth by the arm, I sallied forth amidst a noise that roused the whole Cowgate; and no wonder, perhaps such a scene was never witnessed there before, certainly not since. Mrs Thick’s hands were uplifted as we passed; nor was the wonder less among the other neighbours, who looked upon Elizabeth as a pattern of industry and strict behaviour.
After depositing my bride I got arrangements made for clearing the house of the stolen property. Every thing was removed except the table, chairs, and frame of the bed, and pages would not contain a catalogue of the fruits of this young woman’s industry. But the recovery from Mrs Thick was a different process. I was up till four in the morning getting out and identifying the numerous articles of all kinds stored away in her premises.
By and by, my bride was tried before the High Court; and here I may be allowed a remark on the apparent calosity of people of her stamp. I have often noticed that these dumb, impassable victims are more ready at the end to give way than your loquacious asserters of innocence. I take this peculiarity for a proof that they bleed inwardly, and that while we are angry with them for being what we call unnatural, they are paying the forfeit in another shape. This extraordinary girl, after all her silence and apparent indifference, pled guilty to ten different cases of house-entering, and they were all effected by the two keys I took out of her pocket at the scene of the contemplated marriage. Fourteen years’ transportation was her punishment, and she heard the sentence without a sigh or a tear.
I need scarcely add, that this was the only thief I ever discovered through the means of orange blossom.
The Blue-Bells of Scotland.
THERE are apparently two reasons that influence some of our Edinburgh gentry in locking up their houses and ticketing a window with directions about keys when they go to the country. The first is, that they save the wages of a woman to take charge of the house; and the second, that they may tell their less lucky neighbours that they are able to go to the country and enjoy themselves. No doubt they trust to the watchfulness of a policeman, forgetting that the man has no more than two eyes and two legs, with too often a small portion of brains, which he uses in silent meditation—a kind of “night thoughts,” not always about housebreakers and thieves. I have heard of some of the latter making fun out of these inviting locked-up mansions. “Bill, there’s a ticket in the window about keys, but it’s too far off to be read, and besides, you know, we can’t read.” “No, and so we’ll use a key of our own; we can’t help them things.”
I don’t suppose that Mr Jackson, of Coates Crescent, entertained any such notions when, in June 1843, he locked up his house on the occasion of a short absence of some five or six days; but certain it is, that when he returned he found all outside precisely as he had left it—blinds down, shutters close, doors locked. All right, he thought, as he applied the key and opened the door; but this confidence lasted no longer than a few minutes, when he discovered that his top-coats which hung in the lobby were gone. Now alarmed, he hurried through the house, and wherever he went he found almost every lock of press, cabinet, and drawer, either picked by skeleton keys or wrenched off, wood and all—the splinters of the torn mahogany lying on the carpets. All right! yes, outside. If he had been cool enough he might have thought of the good man’s cheese of three stones, laid upon the shelf for the christening, and when taken down (all right outside) weighed only the avoirdupois of the skin, the inside having been enjoyed by artists scarcely more velvet-footed; and yet the parallel would not have been true, for the thieves here had been most fastidious gentry—even refined, for, in place of carrying off most valuable articles of furniture, they had been contented with only the fine bits of jewellery, gold, and precious stones, such as they could easily carry away, and easily dispose of.