Andrew was tried for the escape from prison as well as for the robbery; and that the judges did not think he was the short-lived person described by Janet, appears from the judgment, which condemned him to fourteen years’ transportation.
The Sea Captain.
I DOUBT whether the good philanthropical people are even yet quite up to all the advantages of ragged schools. The salvation of society from a host of harpies is not the main chance; neither is it that the poor wretches are sold into the slavery of vice and misery before they know right from wrong. There’s something more. I have a suspicion that society loses often what might become its sharpest and most intelligent members in these half-starved youngsters, whose first putting out of the hand is the beginning of a battle with the world. I’m not to try to account for the fact, but I am pretty well satisfied, from all I have seen, that the children of these poor half-starved people are something more apt than the sons of your gentlemen. You who are learned may try your hand at the paradox, and make as much of it as you do of the other riddles of human life. Here is a plea for the John Poundses and Dr Guthries, of which they could make something. Every ragged urchin they lay hold of to make him learn from books has been at a school of another kind, where he has got his energies sharpened on a different whetstone from that found within a school, and then the school does its duty in directing these energies.
Just fancy what some of our card-sharpers would have been if their cleverness had been directed towards honest and lawful undertakings. I have known some of these gentlemen so adroit at the great problem of ways and means that they might have shone as Chancellors of the Exchequer. It is not their fault that we find them out. Their great drawback is, that they begin to be cunning and adroit before they know the world. All this close cunning defeats itself. The young rogues put me often in mind of moles. They work in dark holes, but they are always coming near the surface, where they hitch up friable hillocks to let air in, and so are caught. Nay, they sometimes hitch themselves out into the mid-day sun of justice. I have at this moment two or three of these misdirected geniuses in my eye whom I have traced from early childhood—ay, that period when the Raggedier officers should have laid hold of them.
In April 1854, an honest joiner in Banff of the name of Donald M‘Beath, had taken it into his head that he would do well to go to England, where his talents would be appreciated. In short, Donald had working within him the instinct of that little insect so familiar to the Highlanders, the tendency of which is to go south—probably because it knows in some inscrutable way that Englishmen have thick blood. Then he had friends in Newcastle who had gone before him, and found out that the yellow blood corpuscles of the social body flowed there more plentifully than in Banff. Were I to be more fanciful, I would say that Donald M‘Beath had the second sight—for money. He loved it so well that he had stomach for “ta hail Pank of England,” and would “maype return in ta grand coach and ta grey horses.” Nor had this love been as yet without fruits, for he had by Highland penury saved no less a sum than seven pounds, all stowed away in a sealskin spleuchan, besides seven more which he had laid out on a capital silver watch—convinced that no Highland shentleman bearing a royal name, as he did, could pass muster in England without this commodity.
The Highlanders were never at any time in the habit of getting lighter or leaner by moving from one place to another, if they were not generally a good deal heavier at the end of their journey than at the beginning. So true to the genius of his race, he laid his plans so that, in progressing south, he would lay contributions on his “friends” all the way, in order that, if it “could pe possible,” he might keep the seven pounds all entire—some extra shillings being provided for the voyage in the Britannia from Leith to Newcastle. How many Highland cousins suffered during this transport of the valuable person of the King’s clansman till he got to Leith, I never had any means of knowing. We cannot be far wrong, however, in supposing that he shook them all heartily by the hand; and no pedigree of the M‘Farlans from Parlan downwards, was ever courted with more industry than that of the M‘Beaths, if it was possible to bring within the tree any collateral branch with M‘Beath blood in his veins, meal in his girnal, and a bed fit for a Highlander. Then the shake of the hand, and the “Oigh, oigh” of true happiness, were the gratitude which is paid beforehand—the only kind that Donald knew anything of; or any other body I suspect—at least if I can judge from what I have received from so many to whom I have given lodgings, meat, and free passages.
Arrived at Leith, the first thing Donald did was to get out the little bit of snuff-coloured paper which contained the names of the cousins, and where, among the rest, was that of an old woman in the Kirkgate who was a descendant of the sister of Donald’s grandmother, a Macnab,—as unconscious of being related to the clan of the murderous king as any one could be, before such a flood of light was cast upon her history as Donald was well able to shed. He soon found her out; and though Janet Macnab could make nothing of the pedigree, she could count feelings of humanity; and what was more, she had a supper and a bed to save an infraction upon the said seven pounds.
Next morning, after having partaken of a Highland breakfast from poor Janet, which could only be calculated by the professions of eternal friendship uttered by a Gael, Donald went forth to see the craft which in some cheap berth was to transport him to the land of gold; and, to be sure, it was not long till he saw the vessel lying alongside of the quay. No doubt she was to be honoured in her freight. It was not every day the Britannia carried a M‘Beath with seven pounds in his pocket, a seven-pound watch in his fob, and a chest of tools, which was to cut his way to fortune. Then if it were just possible that the captain had ever been in Banff, or had in his veins a drop of Celtic blood—he would ascertain that by and by, he might even be a M‘Beath or a M‘Nab.
Much, however, as he expected from the clanship of the captain of the Britannia, who was not then to be seen, he had sense enough to know that that officer could not abate his passage-money. Nay, he knew that he must take out his ticket at the office on the shore, and thither he accordingly hied to make a bargain. Unfortunately these tickets are not liable to be affected by Highland prigging; but the loose shillings to which I have alluded allowed him still to retain untouched the seven pounds. Yea, that seven pounds seemed to have a charmed life, the charm being only to be broken by some such wonder as the march of some wood or forest from one part of the kingdom to the other, or by the man who should try to take it having been from the belly of a shark “untimely ript.”
It wanted still some considerable time until the Britannia sailed, and Donald thought that he might as well get his chest of tools and bag of clothes put on board. He accordingly hied away to Mrs M‘Nab’s, and having returned his thanks for her kindness, if he did not promise her a part of his fortune “when it should be made,” he got the packets on his broad shoulders, and proceeded to the vessel. He was more lucky this time. A seaman, very probably the captain, was busy walking the deck.