My story of the ducks and hens concludes with this investigation; for though the scene was renewed before the Sheriff, it was not so rich as that which took place among ourselves. Sandy got sixty days’ imprisonment for the ducks, and six months for the hens, as a kind of second offence; and Luckie Dewar could afford a few tears (common to certain amphibious animals on the banks of the Nile) over the misfortunes of Sandy Dewar, who had thus fallen from being master of the Cock and Trumpet to being the occupant of a prison. Such is the ascending and descending scale of profligate life.
The Widow’s Last Shilling.
DO you know any one within the circle of your experience who is utterly renounced to himself—what is called a money-grub or hunks, eternally yearning for money, so as to deserve the address of Burns: “Fie upon you, coward man, that you should be the slave o’t?” If there’s any tear about that man’s eye, depend upon’t it’s only a thinnish rheum; and as for anything like a response in the ear to the cry of pity, the drum will as soon crack at the singing of a psalm. Such a character is the result of an accumulation of hardnesses, increasing in intensity with his advancing years. We don’t wonder so much at the hunks as hate him. But in regard to the brick-moulded thief, who seldom comes within the range of ordinary observation, you are apt to think that he is not so hard-hearted after all. You give him some credit for generosity,—nay, when he is picking your pocket, you lay to his charge more necessity than will. Yet there never was a harder-hearted wretch than a regular thief. He is as destitute of pity as of honesty, and will steal as readily the shilling from under the poorhouse pensioner’s pillow as the ring from the finger of my lady. Even after “feeding time” he is still rapacious, and if he ever gives away, it is from recklessness, never from benevolence.
I have had many cases that go to prove these remarks, and one occurs to me worthy of recital, from the personal proximity into which I was brought to the condition of the hearts of the actors.
In the eddies at the bottoms of stairs leading to pawn-shops, a detective has often a chance for promising rises to his phantom minnow. In 1845, somewhere in August, I chanced to be coming up the stair leading from the Market to Milne Square. Just as I was arriving at the passage out, two women were coming down from the Equitable Loan Company’s Office; and as they were engaged in conversation, I stood a few steps down where I couldn’t be seen, and heard what they were saying to each other. The voices were those of a young brisk wench and an aged woman, with that kind of wail in her speech which sometimes comes to be a bad habit, but which at least shews that the heart is not so easy as it might be.
“I got five shillings on a plaid worth five pounds,” said the younger. “What did he give you on the blankets?”
“No less than I sought,” replied the elder, “ten shillings. It will just pay my landlord, and leave a shilling over; but it’s a sore heart to me to pawn, for I never was used to it; yet better pawn than be poinded.”
“And who will poind you?”
“My landlord for the rent, woman; ay, a rich man with thousands, who feeds his servants on roast-beef and pudding till they are ready to burst, and yet takes the two or three shillings of rent of me which I need for porridge; and it’s not that these great people like their servants, only they like to get the name of their house being a good meat-house; and the fat limmers are as saucy to them, after all, as ever.”
“But where have you put your ten shillings?” said the other. “Take care you don’t lose it. Is it in your pocket?”