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 churchspire. 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 passersby 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 racking toothache—pacing his room like a caged beast or throwing
himself in fury on his bed—and had fallen at last into that
profound, uneasy slumber that so often follows on a night
of pain, when he was awakened by the third or fourth angry
repetition of the concerted signal. There was a thin, bright
moonshine; it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town had
not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already preluded the
noise and business of the day. The ghouls had come later than
usual, and they seemed more than usually eager to be gone.
Fettes, sick with sleep, lighted them upstairs. He heard their
grumbling Irish voices through a dream; and as they stripped
the sack from their sad merchandise he leaned dozing, with
his shoulder propped against the wall; he had to shake himself
to find the men their money. As he did so his eyes lighted on
the dead face. He started; he took two steps nearer, with the
candle raised.
"God Almighty!" he cried. "That is Jane Galbraith!" The
men answered nothing, but they shuffled nearer the door.
"I know her, I tell you," he continued. "She was alive and
hearty yesterday. It's impossible she can be dead; it's impossible
you should have got this body fairly."
"Sure, sir, you're mistaken entirely," said one of the men.
But the other looked Fettes darkly in the eyes, and
demanded the money on the spot.
It was impossible to misconceive the threat or to exaggerate
the danger. The lad's heart failed him. He stammered some
excuses, counted out the sum, and saw his hateful visitors
depart. No sooner were they gone than he hastened to confirm
his doubts. By a dozen unquestionable marks he identified the
girl he had jested with the day before. He saw, with horror,
marks upon her body that might well betoken violence. A
panic seized him, and he took refuge in his room. There
he reflected at length over the discovery that he had made;
considered soberly the bearing of Mr. K——'s instructions
and the danger to himself of interference in so serious a business, and at last, in sore perplexity, determined to wait
for the advice of his immediate superior, the class assistant.
This was a young doctor, Wolfe Macfarlane, a high
favourite among all the reckless students, clever, dissipated,
and unscrupulous to the last degree. He had travelled and
studied abroad. His manners were agreeable and a little
forward. He was an authority on the stage, skilful on the
ice or the links with skate or golf-club; he dressed with nice
audacity, and, to put the finishing touch upon his glory, he
kept a gig and a strong trotting-horse. With Fettes he was on
terms of intimacy; indeed, their relative positions called for
some community of life; and when subjects were scarce the
pair would drive far into the country in Macfarlane's gig, visit
and desecrate some lonely graveyard, and return before dawn
with their booty to the door of the dissecting-room.
On that particular morning Macfarlane arrived somewhat
earlier than his wont. Fettes heard him, and met him on the
stairs, told him his story, and showed him the cause of his
alarm. Macfarlane examined the marks on her body.
"Yes," he said with a nod, "it looks fishy."
"Well, what should I do? " asked Fettes.
"Do?" repeated the other. "Do you want to do anything?
Least said soonest mended, I should say."
"Some one else might recognise her," objected Fettes. "She
was as well known as the Castle Rock."
"We'll hope not," said Macfarlane, "and if anybody does—
well, you didn't, don't you see, and there's an end. The fact is,
this has been going on too long. Stir up the mud, and you'll get
K—— into the most unholy trouble; you'll be in a shocking
box yourself. So will I, if you come to that. I should like to
know how any one of us would look, or what the devil we
should have to say for ourselves in any Christian witness-box.
For me, you know there's one thing certain—that, practically
speaking, all our subjects have been murdered."
"Macfarlane!" cried Fettes.
"Come now!" sneered the other. "As if you hadn't suspected
it yourself!"
"Suspecting is one thing——"
"And proof another. Yes, I know; and I'm as sorry as you are
this should have come here," tapping the body with his cane.
"The next best thing for me is not to recognise it; and," he
added coolly, "I don't. You may, if you please. I don't dictate,
but I think a man of the world would do as I do; and I may
add, I fancy that is what K—— would look for at our hands.
The question is, Why did he choose us two for his assistants?
And I answer, because he didn't want old wives."
This was the tone of all others to affect the mind of a lad
like Fettes. He agreed to imitate Macfarlane. The body of the
unfortunate girl was duly dissected, and no one remarked or
appeared to recognize her.
One afternoon, when his day's work was over, Fettes dropped
into a popular tavern and found Macfarlane sitting with a
stranger. This was a small man, very pale and dark, with coalblack eyes. The cut of his features gave a promise of intellect
and refinement which was but feebly realised in his manners,
for he proved, upon a nearer acquaintance, coarse, vulgar,
and stupid. He exercised, however, a very remarkable control
over Macfarlane; issued orders like the Great Bashaw; became
inflamed at the least discussion or delay, and commented
rudely on the servility with which he was obeyed. This most
offensive person took a fancy to Fettes on the spot, plied him
with drinks, and honoured him with unusual confidences
on his past career. If a tenth part of what he confessed were
true, he was a very loathsome rogue; and the lad's vanity was
tickled by the attention of so experienced a man.
"I'm a pretty bad fellow myself," the stranger remarked,
"but Macfarlane is the boy—Toddy Macfarlane, I call him.
Toddy, order your friend another glass." Or it might be,
"Toddy, you jump up and shut the door." "Toddy hates me,"
he said again. "Oh, yes, Toddy, you do!"
"Don't you call me that confounded name," growled
Macfarlane.
"Hear him! Did you ever see the lads play knife? He would
like to do that all over my body," remarked the stranger.
"We medicals have a better way than that," said Fettes.
"When we dislike a dead friend of ours, we dissect him."
Macfarlane looked up sharply, as though this jest was
scarcely to his mind.
The afternoon passed. Gray, for that was the stranger's
name, invited Fettes to join them at dinner, ordered a feast
so sumptuous that the tavern was thrown in commotion, and
when all was done commanded Macfarlane to settle the bill.
It was late before they separated; the man Gray was incapably
drunk. Macfarlane, sobered by his fury, chewed the cud of the
money he had been forced to squander and the slights he had
been obliged to swallow. Fettes, with various liquors singing
in his head, returned home with devious footsteps and a mind
entirely in abeyance. Next day Macfarlane was absent from
the class, and Fettes smiled to himself as he imagined him still
squiring the intolerable Gray from tavern to tavern. As soon
as the hour of liberty had struck he posted from place to place
in quest of his last night's companions. He could find them,
however, nowhere; so returned early to his rooms, went early
to bed, and slept the sleep of the just.
At four in the morning he was awakened by the wellknown signal. Descending to the door, he was filled with
astonishment to find Macfarlane with his gig, and in the gig
one of those long and ghastly packages with which he was so
well acquainted.
"What?" he cried. "Have you been out alone? How did you
manage?"
But Macfarlane silenced him roughly, bidding him turn to
business. When they had got the body upstairs and laid it on
the table, Macfarlane made at first as if he were going away.
Then he paused and seemed to hesitate; and then, "You had better look at the face," said he, in tones of some constraint.
"You had better," he repeated, as Fettes only stared at him in
wonder.
"But where, and how, and when did you come by it?" cried
the other.
"Look at the face," was the only answer.
Fettes was staggered; strange doubts assailed him. He
looked from the young doctor to the body, and then back
again. At last, with a start, he did as he was bidden. He had
almost expected the sight that met his eyes, and yet the shock
was cruel. To see, fixed in the rigidity of death and naked on
that coarse layer of sackcloth, the man whom he had left well
clad and full of meat and sin upon the threshold of a tavern,
awoke, even in the thoughtless Fettes, some of the terrors of
the conscience. It was a cras tibi which re- echoed in his soul,
that two whom he had known should have come to lie upon
these icy tables. Yet these were only secondary thoughts. His
first concern regarded Wolfe. Unprepared for a challenge so
momentous, he knew not how to look his comrade in the
face. He durst not meet his eye, and he had neither words nor
voice at his command.
It was Macfarlane himself who made the first advance. He
came up quietly behind and laid his hand gently but firmly
on the other's shoulder.
"Richardson," said he, "may have the head."
Now Richardson was a student who had long been anxious
for that portion of the human subject to dissect. There was no
answer, and the murderer resumed: "Talking of business, you
must pay me; your accounts, you see, must tally."
Fettes found a voice, the ghost of his own: "Pay you!" he
cried. "Pay you for that?"
"Why, yes, of course you must. By all means and on every
possible account, you must," returned the other. "I dare not
give it for nothing, you dare not take it for nothing; it would
compromise us both. This is another case like Jane Galbraith's.
The more things are wrong the more we must act as if all were
right. Where does old K—— keep his money?"
"There," answered Fettes hoarsely, pointing to a cupboard
in the corner.
"Give me the key, then," said the other, calmly, holding out
his hand.
There was an instant's hesitation, and the die was cast.
Macfarlane could not suppress a nervous twitch, the
infinitesimal mark of an immense relief, as he felt the key
between his fingers. He opened the cupboard, brought out
pen and ink and a paper-book that stood in one compartment,
and separated from the funds in a drawer a sum suitable to
the occasion.
"Now, look here," he said, "there is the payment made—
first proof of your good faith: first step to your security. You
have now to clinch it by a second. Enter the payment in your
book, and then you for your part may defy the devil."
The next few seconds were for Fettes an agony of thought;
but in balancing his terrors it was the most immediate that
triumphed. Any future difficulty seemed almost welcome if he
could avoid a present quarrel with Macfarlane. He set down
the candle which he had been carrying all this time, and with
a steady hand entered the date, the nature, and the amount
of the transaction.
"And now," said Macfarlane, "it's only fair that you should
pocket the lucre. I've had my share already. By the bye, when
a man of the world falls into a bit of luck, has a few shillings
extra in his pocket—I'm ashamed to speak of it, but there's
a rule of conduct in the case. No treating, no purchase of
expensive class-books, no squaring of old debts; borrow, don't
lend."
"Macfarlane," began Fettes, still somewhat hoarsely, "I have
put my neck in a halter to oblige you."
"To oblige me?" cried Wolfe. "Oh, come! You did, as near
as I can see the matter; what you downright had to do in self-defence. Suppose I got into trouble, where would you be?
This second little matter flows clearly from the first. Mr. Gray
is the continuation of Miss Galbraith. You can't begin and
then stop. If you begin, you must keep on beginning; that's
the truth. No rest for the wicked."
A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery of fate
seized hold upon the soul of the unhappy student.
"My God!" he cried, "but what have I done? and when did
I begin? To be made a class assistant—in the name of reason,
where's the harm in that? Service wanted the position; Service
might have got it. Would he have been where Iam now?"
"My dear fellow," said Macfarlane, "what a boy you are!
What harm has come to you? What harm can come to you
if you hold your tongue? Why, man, do you know what this
life is? There are two squads of us—the lions, and the lambs.
If you're a lamb, you'll come to lie upon these tables like
Gray or Jane Galbraith; if you're a lion, you'll live and drive
a horse like me, like K——, like all the world with any wit
or courage. You're staggered at the first. But look at K——!
My dear fellow, you're clever, you have pluck. I like you, and
K—— likes you. You were born to lead the hunt; and I tell
you, on my honour and my experience of life, three days from
now you'll laugh at all these scarecrows like a high-school boy
at a farce."
And with that Macfarlane took his departure and drove
off up the wynd in his gig to get under cover before daylight.
Fettes was thus left alone with his regrets. He saw the miserable
peril in which he stood involved. He saw, with inexpressible
dismay, that there was no limit to his weakness, and that,
from concession to concession, he had fallen from the arbiter
of Macfarlane's destiny to his paid and helpless accomplice.
He would have given the world to have been a little braver
at the time, but it did not occur to him that he might still be
brave. The secret of Jane Galbraith and the cursed entry in the
daybook closed his mouth.
Hours passed; the class began to arrive; the members of
the unhappy Gray were dealt out to one and to another,
and received without remark. Richardson was made happy
with the head; and before the hour of freedom rang Fettes
trembled with exultation to perceive how far they had already
gone toward safety.
For two days he continued to watch, with increasing joy,
the dreadful process of disguise.
On the third day Macfarlane made his appearance. He
had been ill, he said; but he made up for lost time by the
energy with which he directed the students. To Richardson
in particular he extended the most valuable assistance and
advice, and that student, encouraged by the praise of the
demonstrator, burned high with ambitious hopes, and saw
the medal already in his grasp.
Before the week was out Macfarlane's prophecy had been
fulfilled. Fettes had outlived his terrors and had forgotten his
baseness. He began to plume himself upon his courage, and
had so arranged the story in his mind that he could look back
on these events with an unhealthy pride. Of his accomplice
he saw but little. They met, of course, in the business of the
class; they received their orders together from Mr. K——. At
times they had a word or two in private, and Macfarlane was
from first to last particularly kind and jovial. But it was plain
that he avoided any reference to their common secret; and
even when Fettes whispered to him that he had cast in his lot
with the lions and forsworn the lambs, he only signed to him
smilingly to hold his peace.
At length an occasion arose which threw the pair once
more into a closer union. Mr. K—— was again short of
subjects; pupils were eager, and it was a part of this teacher's
pretensions to be always well supplied. At the same time there
came the news of a burial in the rustic graveyard of Glencorse.
Time has little changed the place in question. It stood then,
as now, upon a cross road, out of call of human habitations, and buried fathoms deep in the foliage of six cedar trees. The
cries of the sheep upon the neighbouring hills, the streamlets
upon either hand, one loudly singing among pebbles, the
other dripping furtively from pond to pond, the stir of the
wind in mountainous old flowering chestnuts, and once
in seven days the voice of the bell and the old tunes of the
precentor, were the only sounds that disturbed the silence
around the rural church. The Resurrection Man—to use
a byname of the period—was not to be deterred by any of
the sanctities of customary piety. It was part of his trade to
despise and desecrate the scrolls and trumpets of old tombs,
the paths worn by the feet of worshippers and mourners, and
the offerings and the inscriptions of bereaved affection. To
rustic neighbourhoods, where love is more than commonly
tenacious, and where some bonds of blood or fellowship unite
the entire society of a parish, the body-snatcher, far from
being repelled by natural respect, was attracted by the ease
and safety of the task. To bodies that had been laid in earth,
in joyful expectation of a far difFerent awakening, there came
that hasty, lamp-lit, terror-haunted resurrection of the spade
and mattock. The coffin was forced, the cerements torn, and
the melancholy relics, clad in sackcloth, after being rattled
for hours on moonless byways, were at length e~posed to
uttermost indignities before a class of gaping boys.
Somewhat as two vultures may swoop upon a dying lamb,
Fettes and Macfarlane were to be let loose upon a grave in that
green and quiet resting-place. The wife of a farmer, a woman
who had lived for sixty years, and been known for nothing but
good butter and a godly conversation, was to be rooted from
her grave at midnight and carried, dead and naked to that
far-away city that she had always honoured with her Sunday's
best; the place beside her family was to be empty till the crack
of doom; her innocent and almost venerable members to be
exposed to that last curiosity of the anatomist.
Late one afternoon the pair set forth, well wrapped in cloaks and furnished with a formidable bottle. It rained
without remission—a cold, dense, lashing rain. Now and
again there blew a puff of wind, but these sheets of falling
water kept it down. Bottle and all, it was a sad and silent drive
as far as Penicuik, where they were to spend the evening. They
stopped once, to hide their implements in a thick bush not
far from the churchyard, and once again at the Fisher's Tryst,
to have a toast before the kitchen fire and vary their nips of
whisky with a glass of ale. When they reached their journey's
end the gig was housed, the horse was fed and comforted, and
the two young doctors in a private room sat down to the best
dinner and the best wine the house afforded. The lights, the
fire, the beating rain upon the window, the cold, incongruous
work that lay before them, added zest to their enjoyment of
the meal. With every glass their cordiality increased. Soon
Macfarlane handed a little pile of gold to his companion.
"A compliment," he said. "Between friends these little
d——d accommodations ought to fly like pipe-lights."
Fettes pocketed the money, and applauded the sentiment
to the echo. "You are a philosopher," he cried. "I was an ass
till I knew you. You and K—— between you, by the Lord
Harry! but you'll make a man of me."
"Of course, we shall," applauded Macfarlane. "A man? I
tell you, it required a man to back me up the other morning.
There are some big, brawling, forty-year-old cowards who
would have turned sick at the look of the d——d thing; but
not you—you kept your head. I watched you."
"Well, and why not?" Fettes thus vaunted himself.
"It was no affair of mine. There was nothing to gain on the
one side but disturbance, and on the other I could count on
your gratitude, don't you see?" And he slapped his pocket till
the gold pieces rang.
Macfarlane somehow felt a certain touch of alarm at these
unpleasant words. He may have regretted that he had taught
his young companion so successfully, but he had no time to interfere, for the other noisily continued in this boastful
strain:
"The great thing is not to be afraid. Now, between you and
me, I don't want to hang—that's practical; but for all cant,
Macfarlane, I was born with a contempt. Hell, God, Devil,
right, wrong, sin, crime, and all the old gallery of curiosities
—they may frighten boys, but men of the world, like you and
me, despise them. Here's to the memory of Gray!"
It was by this time growing somewhat late. The gig,
according to order, was brought round to the door with
both lamps brightly shining, and the young men had to pay
their bill and take the road. They announced that they were
bound for Peebles, and drove in that direction till they were
clear of the last houses of the town; then, extinguishing the
lamps, returned upon their course, and followed a by-road
toward Glencorse. There was no sound but that of their own
passage, and the incessant, strident pouring of the rain. It was
pitch dark; here and there a white gate or a white stone in
the wall guided them for a short space across the night; but
for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almost groping,
that they picked their way through that resonant blackness to
their solemn and isolated destination. In the sunken woods
that traverse the neighbourhood of the burying-ground the
last glimmer failed them, and it became necessary to kindle
a match and reillumine one of the lanterns of the gig. Thus,
under the dripping trees, and environed by huge and moving
shadows, they reached the scene of their unhallowed labours.
They were both experienced in such affairs, and powerful
with the spade; and they had scarce been twenty minutes at
their task before they were rewarded by a dull rattle on the
coffin lid. At the same moment Macfarlane, having hurt his
hand upon a stone, flung it carelessly above his head. The
grave, in which they now stood almost to the shoulders, was
close to the edge of the plateau of the graveyard; and the gig
lamp had been propped, the better to illuminate their labours, against a tree, and on the immediate verge of the steep bank
descending to the stream. Chance had taken a sure aim with
the stone. Then came a clang of broken glass; night fell upon
them; sounds alternately dull and ringing announced the
bounding of the lantern down the bank, and its occasional
collision with the trees. A stone or two, which it had dislodged
in its descent, rattled behind it into the profundities of the
glen; and then silence, like night, resumed its sway; and they
might bend their hearing to its utmost pitch, but naught was
to be heard except the rain, now marching to the wind, now
steadily falling over miles of open country.
They were so nearly at an end of their abhorred task that
they judged it wisest to complete it in the dark. The coffin was
exhumed and broken open; the body inserted in the dripping
sack and carried between them to the gig; one mounted to
keep it in its place, and the other, taking the horse by the
mouth, groped along by wall and bush until they reached the
wider road by the Fisher's Tryst. Here was a faint, diffused
radiancy, which they hailed like daylight; by that they pushed
the horse to a good pace and began to rattle along merrily in
the direction of the town.
They had both been wetted to the skin during their
operations, and now, as the gig jumped among the deep ruts,
the thing that stood propped between them fell now upon
one and now upon the other. At every repetition of the horrid
contact each instinctively repelled it with the greater haste;
and the process, natural although it was, began to tell upon
the nerves of the companions. Macfarlane made some illfavoured jest about the farmer's wife, but it came hollowly
from his lips, and was allowed to drop in silence. Still their
unnatural burden bumped from side to side; and now the
head would be laid, as if in confidence, upon their shoulders,
and now the drenching sackcloth would flap icily about their
faces. A creeping chill began to possess the soul of Fettes.
He peered at the bundle, and it seemed somehow larger than at first. All over the countryside, and from every degree
of distance, the farm dogs accompanied their passage with
tragic ululations; and it grew and grew upon his mind that
some unnatural miracle had been accomplished, that some
nameless change had befallen the dead body, and that it was
in fear of their unholy burden that the dogs were howling.
"For God's sake," said he, making a great effort to arrive at
speech, "for God's sake, let's have a light!"
Seemingly Macfarlane was affected in the same direction;
for, though he made no reply, he stopped the horse, passed the
reins to his companion, got down, and proceeded to kindle
the remaining lamp. They had by that time got no farther than
the cross-road down to Auchenclinny. The rain still poured as
though the deluge were returning, and it was no easy matter
to make a light in such a world of wet and darkness. When
at last the flickering blue flame had been transferred to the
wick and began to expand and clarify, and shed a wide circle
of misty brightness round the gig, it became possible for the
two young men to see each other and the thing they had
along with them. The rain had moulded the rough sacking
to the outlines of the body underneath; the head was distinct
from the trunk, the shoulders plainly modelled; something at
once spectral and human riveted their eyes upon the ghastly
comrade of their drive.
For some time Macfarlane stood motionless, holding up
the lamp. A nameless dread was swathed, like a wet sheet,
about the body, and tightened the white skin upon the face of
Fettes; a fear that was meaningless, a horror of what could not
be, kept mounting to his brain. Another beat of the watch,
and he had spoken. But his comrade forestalled him.
"That is not a woman," said Macfarlane in a hushed voice.
"It was a woman when we put her in," whispered Fettes.
"Hold that lamp," said the other. "I must see her face."
And as Fettes took the lamp his companion untied the
fastenings of the sack and drew down the cover from the head.
The light fell very clear upon the dark, well-moulded features
and smooth-shaven cheeks of a too familiar countenance,
often beheld in dreams of both of these young men. A wild
yell rang up into the night; each leaped from his own side
into the roadway; the lamp fell, broke and was extinguished;
and the horse, terrified by this unusual commotion, bounded
and went off toward Edinburgh at a gallop, bearing along
with it, sole occupant of the gig, the body of the dead and
long-dissected Gray.