THERE are certain duties we perform of which we are scarcely aware, and which consist in a species of strolling supervision among houses, which, though not devoted to resetting, are often yet receptacles of stolen goods, through a means of the residence there of women of the lowest stratum of vice and profligacy. Though we have no charge against the house at the time, and no suspicion that it contains stolen property, we claim the privilege of going through it on the ostensible pretence that we have in view a particular object of recovery. I have generally, I think, been fonder of these pleasant strolls than my brethren, perhaps for the reason that on some occasions I have been fortunate in what may be called chance waifs. Among these there was at the period I allude to, a well-known house, known as the Cock and Trumpet, for the reason that a bantam was represented on the sign as blowing the clarion of war in the shape of a huge French horn—significant no doubt of the crowing of the Gallic cockerel. It was a favourite of mine—the more by token that I had several times brought off rather wonderful things. On one occasion I issued triumphantly with a Dunlop cheese weighing thirty pounds, on another with a dozen of Italian sausages, and on another with two live geese.
It was a feature of the portly landlady that she never knew (not she) that such things were in the house. “Some of thae rattling deevils o’ hizzies had done it. The glaikit limmers, will they no be content wi’ their ain game, but maun turn common thieves?” Then her surprise was just as like the real astonishment as veritable wonder itself. “And got ye that in my house, Mr M‘Levy? Whaur in a’ the earth did it come frae? and wha brought it to the Cock and Trumpet? I wish I kent the gillet.”
But the sound of her trumpet was changed one morning after she had taken to herself a certain Mr Alexander Dewar to be lord of her, her establishment, and the crowing bantam. Sandy, who was himself a great thief, had thus risen in the sliding scale. It is not often that thieves rise to be the head of an establishment with a dozen of beds, though without even a fir table by way of ordinary; but so true is the title of my book, that Sandy’s slide upwards was just the cause of a return downwards with accelerated velocity.
One morning I happened to be earlier on my rounds than usual, and though houses like the Cock and Trumpet do their business during night, and are therefore late openers, I found the door open.
Something more than ordinary, I said to myself. The bantam must have been roused by some cock that has seen the morning’s light sooner than it reaches the deep recesses of that wynd.
And going straight in, and passing through a room of sleeping beauties reposing blissfully amidst a chorus of snorts, I came to the bed-room of the new master himself. The mistress was enjoying in bed the repose due to her midnight and morning labours, snoring as deep as a woman of her size and suction could do, and beside her, in a chair, sat Sandy himself plucking lustily at fowls. He had finished nine hens, and was busy with the last of nine ducks. No wonder that the bantam had crown so early.
“What a fine show of poultry, Sandy, man,” said I. “Where got you so many hens and ducks?”
“A man has surely a right to what comes into his ain trap,” replied the rogue, as unmoved as one of the dead hens. “They flew in at the window.”
And he proceeded with his operation of plucking.
My voice had in the meantime awakened his helpmate.