(1884)
Robert Louis Stevenson
EVERY night in the year, four of us sat in the small parlour of
the George at Debenham—the undertaker, and the landlord,
and Fettes, and myself. Sometimes there would be more; but
blow high, blow low, come rain or snow or frost, we four would
be each planted in his own particular arm-chair. Fettes was an
old drunken Scotchman, a man of education obviously, and
a man of some property, since he lived in idleness. He had
come to Debenham years ago, while still young, and by a mere
continuance of living had grown to be an adopted townsman.
His blue camlet cloak was a local antiquity, like the churchďżľspire. His place in the parlour at the George, his absence from
church, his old, crapulous, disreputable vices, were all things
of course in Debenham. He had some vague Radical opinions
and some fleeting infidelities, which he would now and again
set forth and emphasise with tottering slaps upon the table.
He drank rum—five glasses regularly every evening; and for
the greater portion of his nightly visit to the George sat, with
his glass in his right hand, in a state of melancholy alcoholic
saturation. We called him the Doctor, for he was supposed
to have some special knowledge of medicine, and had been
known, upon a pinch, to set a fracture or reduce a dislocation;
but beyond these slight particulars, we had no knowledge of
his character and antecedents.
One dark winter night—it had struck nine some time
before the landlord joined us—there was a sick man in the
George, a great neighbouring proprietor suddenly struck
down with apoplexy on his way to Parliament; and the great
man's still greater London doctor had been telegraphed to his bedside. It was the first time that such a thing had happened
in Debenham, for the railway was but newly open, and we
were all proportionately moved by the occurrence.
"He's come," said the landlord, after he had filled and
lighted his pipe.
"He?" said I. "Who?—not the doctor?"
"Himself," replied our host.
"What is his name?"
"Dr. Macfarlane," said the landlord.
Fettes was far through his third tumblers stupidly fuddled,
now nodding over, now staring mazily around him; but at
the last word he seemed to awaken, and repeated the name
"Macfarlane" twice, quietly enough the first time, but with
sudden emotion at the second.
"Yes," said the landlord, "that's his name, Doctor Wolfe
Macfarlane."
Fettes became instantly sober; his eyes awoke, his voice
became clear, loud, and steady, his language forcible and
earnest. We were all startled by the transformation, as if a
man had risen from the dead.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I am afraid I have not
been paying much attention to your talk. Who is this Wolfe
Macfarlane?" And then, when he had heard the landlord out,
"It cannot be, it cannot be," he added; "and yet I would like
well to see him face to face."
"Do you know him, Doctor?" asked the undertaker, with
a gasp.
"God forbid!" was the reply. "And yet the name is a strange
one; it were too much to fancy two. Tell me, landlord, is he
old?"
"Well," said the host, "he's not a young man, to be sure,
and his hair is white; but he looks younger than you."
"He is older, though; years older. But," with a slap upon
the table, "it's the rum you see in my face—rum and sin.
This man, perhaps, may have an easy conscience and a good digestion. Conscience! Hear me speak. You would think I was
some good, old, decent Christian, would you not? But no,
not I; I never canted. Voltaire might have canted if he'd stood
in my shoes; but the brains"—with a rattling fillip on his bald
head—"the brains were clear and active, and I saw and made
no deductions."
"If you know this doctor," I ventured to remark, after a
somewhat awful pause, "I should gather that you do not share
the landlord's good opinion."
Fettes paid no regard to me.
"Yes," he said, with sudden decision, "I must see him face
to face."
There was another pause, and then a door was closed
rather sharply on the first floor, and a step was heard upon
the stair.
"That's the doctor," cried the landlord. "Look sharp, and
you can catch him."
It was but two steps from the small parlour to the door
of the old George Inn; the wide oak staircase landed almost
in the street; there was room for a Turkey rug and nothing
more between the threshold and the last round of the descent;
but this little space was every evening brilliantly lit up, not
only by the light upon the stair and the great signal-lamp
below the sign, but by the warm radiance of the barroom
window. The George thus brightly advertised itself to passersďżľby in the cold street. Fettes walked steadily to the spot, and
we, who were hanging behind, beheld the two men meet, as
one of them had phrased it, face to face. Dr. Macfarlane was
alert and vigorous. His white hair set off his pale and placid,
although energetic, countenance. He was richly dressed in the
finest of broadcloth and the whitest of linen, with a great gold
watch-chain, and studs and spectacles of the same precious
material. He wore a broad-folded tie, white and speckled with
lilac, and he carried on his arm a comfortable driving-coat of
fur. There was no doubt but he became his years, breathing, as he did, of wealth and consideration; and it was a surprising
contrast to see our parlour sot—bald, dirty, pimpled, and
robed in his old camlet cloak—confront him at the bottom
of the stairs.
"Macfarlane!" he said somewhat loudly, more like a herald
than a friend.
The great doctor pulled up short on the fourth step, as
though the familiarity of the address surprised and somewhat
shocked his dignity.
"Toddy Macfarlane!" repeated Fettes.
The London man almost staggered. He stared for the
swiftest of seconds at the man before him, glanced behind him
with a sort of scare, and then in a startled whisper "Fettes!"
he said, "you!"
"Ay," said the other, "me! Did you think I was dead too? We
are not so easy shut of our acquaintance."
"Hush, hush!" exclaimed the doctor. "Hush, hush! this
meeting is so unexpected—I can see you are unmanned I
hardly knew you, I confess, at first; but I am overjoyed—
overjoyed to have this opportunity. For the present it must be
how-d'ye-do and good-by in one, for my fly is waiting, and I
must not fail the train; but you shall—let me see—yes—you
shall give me your address, and you can count on early news
of me. We must do something for you, Fettes. I fear you are
out at elbows; but we must see to that for auld lang syne, as
once we sang at suppers."
"Money!" cried Fettes; "money from you! The money that
I had from you is lying where I cast it in the rain."
Dr. Macfarlane had talked himself into some measure of
superiority and confidence, but the uncommon energy of this
refusal cast him back into his first confusion.
A horrible, ugly look came and went across his almost
venerable countenance. "My dear fellow," he said, "be it as
you please; my last thought is to offend you. I would intrude
on none. I will leave you my address however——" "I do not wish it—I do not wish to know the roof that
shelters you," interrupted the other. "I heard your name; I
feared it might be you; I wished to know if, after all, there
were a God; I know now that there is none. Begone!"
He still stood in the middle of the rug, between the stair
and doorway; and the great London physician, in order to
escape, would be forced to step to one side. It was plain that he
hesitated before the thought of this humiliation. White as he
was, there was a dangerous glitter in his spectacles; but while
he still paused uncertain, he became aware that the driver of
his fly was peering in from the street at this unusual scene,
and caught a glimpse at the same time of our little body from
the parlour, huddled by the corner of the bar. The presence of
so many witnesses decided him at once to flee. He crouched
together, brushing on the wainscot, and made a dart like a
serpent, striking for the door. But his tribulation was not yet
entirely at an end, for even as he was passing Fettes clutched
him by the arm and these words came in a whisper, and yet
painfully distinct, "Have you seen it again?"
The great rich London doctor cried out aloud with a sharp,
throttling cry; he dashed his questioner across the open space,
and, with his hands over his head, fled out of the door like a
detected thief. Before it had occurred to one of us to make a
movement the fly was already rattling toward the station. The
scene was over like a dream, but the dream had left proofs
and traces of its passage. Next day the servant found the fine
gold spectacles broken on the threshold, and that very night
we were all standing breathless by the barroom window, and
Fettes at our side, sober, pale and resolute in look.
"God protect us, Mr. Fettes!" said the landlord, coming
first into possession of his customary senses. "What in the
universe is all this? These are strange things you have been
saying."
Fettes turned toward us; he looked us each in succession in
the face. "See if you can hold your tongues," said he. "That man Macfarlane is not safe to cross; those that have done so
already have repented it too late."
And then, without so much as finishing his third glass, far
less waiting for the other two, he bade us good-by and went
forth, under the lamp of the hotel, into the black night.
We three turned to our places in the parlour, with the big
red fire and four clear candles; and as we recapitulated what
had passed the first chill of our surprise soon changed into a
glow of curiosity. We sat late; it was the latest session I have
known in the old George. Each man, before we parted, had
his theory that he was bound to prove; and none of us had
any nearer business in this world than to track out the past
of our condemned companion, and surprise the secret that
he shared with the great London doctor. It is no great boast,
but I believe I was a better hand at worming out a story than
either of my fellows at the George; and perhaps there is now
no other man alive who could narrate to you the following
foul and unnatural events.
In his young days Fettes studied medicine in the schools
of Edinburgh. He had talent of a kind, the talent that picks
up swiftly what it hears and readily retails it for its own.
He worked little at home; but he was civil, attentive, and
intelligent in the presence of his masters. They soon picked
him out as a lad who listened closely and remembered well;
nay, strange as it seemed to me when I first heard it, he was
in those days well favoured, and pleased by his exterior. There
was, at that period, a certain extramural teacher of anatomy,
whom I shall here designate by the letter K. His name was
subsequently too well known. The man who bore it skulked
through the streets of Edinburgh in disguise, while the mob
that applauded at the execution of Burke called loudly for the
blood of his employer. But Mr. K—— was then at the top
of his vogue; he enjoyed a popularity due partly to his own
talent and address, partly to the incapacity of his rival, the
university professor. The students, at least, swore by his name, and Fettes believed himself, and was believed by others, to
have laid the foundations of success when he had acquired
the favour of this meteorically famous man. Mr. K—— was
a bon vivant as well as an accomplished teacher; he liked a sly
allusion no less than a careful preparation. In both capacities
Fettes enjoyed and deserved his notice, and by the second year
of his attendance he held the half-regular position of second
demonstrator or sub-assistant in his class.
In this capacity, the charge of the theatre and lecturerdom
devolved in particular upon his shoulders. He had to answer
for the cleanliness of the premises and the conduct of the
other students, and it was a part of his duty to supply, receive,
and divide the various subjects. It was with a view to this
last—at that time very delicate— affair that he was lodged
by Mr. K—— in the same wynd, and at last in the same
building, with the dissecting-room. Here, after a night of
turbulent pleasures, his hand still tottering, his sight still
misty and confused, he would be called out of bed in the
black hours before the winter dawn by the unclean and
desperate interlopers who supplied the table. He would open
the door to these men, since infamous throughout the land.
He would help them with their tragic burden, pay them
their sordid price, and remain alone, when they were gone,
with the unfriendly relics of humanity. From such a scene
he would return to snatch another hour or two of slumber,
to repair the abuses of the night, and refresh himself for the
labours of the day.
Few lads could have been more insensible to the impressions
of a life thus passed among the ensigns of mortality. His mind
was closed against all general considerations. He was incapable
of interest in the fate and fortunes of another, the slave of his
own desires and low ambitions. Cold, light, and selfish in
the last resort, he had that modicum of prudence, miscalled
morality, which keeps a man from inconvenient drunkenness
or punishable theft. He coveted, besides, a measure of consideration from his masters and his fellow-pupils, and he
had no desire to fail conspicuously in the external parts of
life. Thus he made it his pleasure to gain some distinction
in his studies, and day after day rendered unimpeachable
eye-service to his employer, Mr. K——. For his day of work
he indemnified himself by nights of roaring, blackguardly
enjoyment; and when that balance had been struck, the organ
that he called his conscience declared itself content.
The supply of subjects was a continual trouble to him as
well as to his master. In that large and busy class, the raw
material of the anatomists kept perpetually running out; and
the business thus rendered necessary was not only unpleasant
in itself, but threatened dangerous consequences to all who
were concerned. It was the policy of Mr. K—— to ask no
questions in his dealings with the trade. "They bring the
body, and we pay the price," he used to say, dwelling on the
alliteration—" quid pro quo ." And again, and somewhat
profanely, "Ask no questions," he would tell his assistants,
"for conscience sake." There was no understanding that the
subjects were provided by the crime of murder. Had that
idea been broached to him in words, he would have recoiled
in horror; but the lightness of his speech upon so grave a
matter was, in itself, an offence against good manners, and
a temptation to the men with whom he dealt. Fettes, for
instance, had often remarked to himself upon the singular
freshness of the bodies. He had been struck again and again
by the hang-dog, abominable looks of the ruffians who came
to him before the dawn; and putting things together clearly
in his private thoughts, he perhaps attributed a meaning too
immoral and too categorical to the unguarded counsels of
his master. He understood his duty, in short, to have three
branches: to take what was brought, to pay the price, and to
avert the eye from any evidence of crime.
One November morning this policy of silence was put
sharply to the test. He had been awake all night with a rackingÂ