“No, no,” said I, “no murders here; but perhaps James is not dead—he may recover.”
“Why do you say that?” he cried, as he slipt off the chair, and took me by the knees; “who knows that? has any one seen him to tell you? I would give the world and my existence to know that he has got one remnant of life in him;” and then he added, as his head fell upon his chest, “Alas! it is impossible. I took too good care of that. It would have done for one of his master’s oxen.”
“Imrie’s not dead,” said a constable, as he came forward; “they’ve taken him to the Infirmary.”
I have seen a criminal with his whole soul in his ear as the jury took their seats, and seen his eye after the transference of his spirit from the one organ to the other, as he heard the words “Not guilty.” So appeared Wright. He rose up, and again seating himself, while his eye was still fixed on the bearer of good news, he held up his hands in an attitude of prayer, and kept muttering words which I could not hear.
On leading him to the cell, where he was in solitude to be left for the night, I could not help thinking, as I have done on other occasions, that the first night is the true period of torture to such a one as Wright, with remorse in his heart. I suspect we cannot picture those agonies of the spirit except by some comparisons with our experiences of pain; but as pain changes its character with every pang, as it responds to the ever-coming and varying thoughts, our efforts are simply ineffectual. We give a shudder, and fly to some other thought for relief. To a sufferer such as Wright, we can picture only one alternative—the total renunciation of the spirit to God; and how wonderfully the constitution of the mind is suited to this, the deepest remorse finding the readiest way where we would think it might be reversed. It is impossible to rid one’s-self of the conviction from this strange fact alone, that Christianity, which harmonises with this instinct, so to call it, comes from the God of the instinct. It seemed to me that Wright would, in the ensuing night, find the solace he seemed to yearn for. He had already got some hope; and becoming calm, I sat down beside him for a short time, for I had known him as a decent, hard-working fellow, incapable, except under some frenzy, of committing murder. I got from him the conversation with Imrie, which I have given partly, I doubt not, in that incorrect way, as to the set form of words, inseparable from such narratives.
“When I called James an idiot,” he continued, “I saw the expression, as I thought, coming over his face, and I had the feeling I had in my dream, but I soon saw the old smile there again, and was soon reconciled.
“ ‘Weel, maybe I am an idiot,’ said James, ‘for I’ve been aye dangling my bonnet in the presence o’ customers, when maybe if I had clapt it on my head wi’ a gude thud o’ my hand, and said, “I’m as gude as you,” and forced my way i’ the warld, I wouldna, this day, be ca’d Jamie Imrie, the flesher’s porter.’
“And the good soul smiled again, so we took another glass of the whisky,—a good thing when it works in a good heart, but a fearful one when it rouses the latent corruption of a bad one. I fear it wrought so with me, for although we were old friends, I got still moodier, thinking more and more of my dream, while James became more humorous.
“ ‘But, Willie, my dear Willie,’ he said, ‘idiot as I may be, I doot if I would ha’e been better under your system, for I would ha’e been a daft laird o’ five acres, and gi’en awa’ my snuff and my whisky, and maybe my turnips, to my freends, and got in debt and been a bankrupt proprietor; so, just to be plain wi’ you, and I’ve thought o’ tellin’ ye this afore nou, I would recommend you to gi’e up this new-fangled nonsense o’ yours, or rather, I should say, auld-fangled, for you’ve been at it since ever I mind. Naebody seems to understand it, and here’s a bit o’ a secret,’ lowering his voice, ‘the folks lauch at ye when you’re walking on the street, and say, “There’s the political cobbler that’s to cobble up society.”’
“ ‘Laugh at me!’ I cried, in my roused wrath, yet I had borne ten times more from my old friend; ‘laugh at me, you villain!’