In the year 1845, a respectable agent in Aberdeen for one of the Steam Navigation Companies, having occasion to go down to the pier to look after some duty connected with one of the steamers, bethought himself, as he considered wisely, to put the contents of his cash-box in his pocket, so that before going home, where he kept his money during night, he would not require to go back to the office. I have always found that people have more confidence in their pockets than even in a safe, though certainly thieves would rather reverse the faith, and I would be inclined to back them. There was a crowd on the pier, and certain parties, who love a jostle,—in which they have nothing to lose, but something to gain,—raised such a commotion about our agent as took his mind off his pocket, in place of directing it there, as all such commotions should. He accordingly lost his bag, containing about £60, part in notes and part in sovereigns. Though so far north, the young gentlemen who had “ fingered” him did not shew a northern adroitness in crying out, as they should have done, “ Yonder’s the thief making off through the crowd,” whereby they might themselves have escaped notice. On the contrary, they tried to make off with their booty, whereby they brought upon them a sort of painful attention ; for these gentlemen, unlike most clever people, don’t like admiration or patronage, not due to their humility and love of retirement. Cries were accordingly got up, “ They ’re off, yonder,” where the fingers pointed, and two policemen, of the Aberdeen Doric order, went in pursuit. It would appear that either the scent was too weak, or the Highland noses too strong—I mean not delicate enough for a man-chase—the most difficult of all hunts; for by the time they got to Union Street, the youths— for there were two—had hired a cab, and gone south by the coastline. This information I would have considered something valuable, and no doubt the policemen took that view as well. So getting another vehicle, with a fast-going horse, they began the pursuit; nor were they drawn off the scent, even among villages famous for Finnan baddies and red herrings, till they got to Stonehaven, where their noses became either faulty, or were not properly supplied with the scent of Laverna1’s ointment-box, as a learned friend once, in my hearing, called that unctuous mean whereby her children become so slippery. They, however, caught the driver of the young gentlemen’s cab, and somehow he proved as slippery as they, having got himself anointed with the said unction, probably through the palm. “ You drove’twa chields frae Aberdeen, didna you? ” “ Oh, yes—perfect gentlemen ” “ We dinna want to ken whether they were gentlemen or no, ye breet,” said one of the men, furious with his disappointment. “ It’s not my fault if they were gentlemen,” rejoined Jehu, who had been south; “ nor am I to blame that they paid me handsomely out of a big purse. I like a man as is liberal.” “You’re a tamned leear,” said the other officer; “ they ’re a pair o’ big thiefs.” “ Maybe we ’re wrang,” rejoined the other; “ we canna be sheer about them, for we never saw them.” “ Oh, you didn’t ? ” said the cabby, a deal sharper than the Aberdonian detectives; “ then, you know they were gents—regular gents—a little out o’ sorts in the garments, from roughing it, but regular gents.” “ And whaur did ye set doon the fine gentlemen ?” said the last sharp one. “ Why, at the inn, to be sure, where all as are gents are set down.” “ And whaur did they gang? ” “ I never looks after gents when they pays me handsomely.”
“ Then it’s aw up, Saunders; we maun jeest gae back the road we cam’. Tam shame to set us on this wildguse chase.” “ I’d strongly recommend your return,” said the cabman, laughing within his teeth; “ the’re twenty miles on by this time, and you couldn’t overtake them anyhow.” And these men-hunters, as reported to me, with noses so strong as to afford a good crop of red hair from each nostril, and yet so weak as to be unable to draw up a scent which, though I say it, would have made my olfactories quiver, actually did return to Aberdeen, with the opinion that they had been on the trail of gentlemen, in place of two of the most seedy blackguards that ever changed clothes with the proceeds of a robbery, and threw away the old habiliments behind a dyke. But, what was even worse, the authorities in Aberdeen did not communicate with us in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, and in perfect ignorance of the robbery, I happened to be coming up Victoria Street, with my assistant a little a-rear, when my eyes caught two faces, one of which was well known to me. Indeed, I may repeat, under the peril of a charge of egotism, that I can’t forget a countenance if once its lines are well fixed in my mind; and certainly, but for this faculty, which works its way in spite of all changes and shifts of dress, or assumption of whiskers, or cutting them off, or any art of metamorphosis, I could not have recognised my old friend in his new dress, with his fine coat and overcoat, French boots, nobby hat, and so forth, all according to the highest style. Nay, there was even the air and swagger of a man of ton. “ Well, Jem, my lad,” I said, standing right before him, “ at what shop were you fitted? What an effect a change of fortune has! You were inclined to cut an old friend, and yet I have tried to put you on the way of amendment.” “ What is it to you where I was fitted ? ” replied he, with that scowl of firmness which lies ready among the muscles to frown out at every instant.
“Nothing,” replied I; “but something to you. I have a whim in my head. I want you and your gentlemanly companion up to the office.” “ You have no charge against me,” said he, doggedly.
“ Can’t a fellow dress as he likes? ” “ Yes,” was my answer, “ unless he meet the like of me, whose taste is a little put out o’ sorts by inconsistency. No apology. Just come quietly along—don’t want to shame a gentleman, you know.”
And, upon my calling up my assistant, he saw that it was of no use trying a fight or a run, so gave in quietly, in that way they can all do, for they have a kind of pride sometimes in yielding handsomely. Arrived at the office with my friends, I immediately stripped them of their fine top-coats.
“ So,” said I, “ you choose not to say who was your tailor ? ”
The old answer :—“ You have no business with that. What have our coats done ? ” “ Perhaps what the sheep’s clothing did that covered a certain animal,” said I. “No more argument. I d tain you for inquiry.” Next day I had them before the magistrate, merely on the plea of the coats. I had no other charge; and I took this step, though I had as yet got no proof, with a view to justify my detention of them until, after a continuation of the diet, I might seek my evidences. While waiting for the case being taken up, a gentleman who was in the court came up to me. “ Why are you watching those fellows ? ” said he.“ Because I suspect they have been after some foul play, probably in the north.” “ There’s a robbery reported in the Aberdeen Advertiser” he continued. “ I’d advise you to go to Harthill’s and read it.” “ Something better than the topcoats,” I thought, as I nodded to my informant. Having got the case continued, and the gentlemen again in their proper place, I set off for the Waterloo Room, where I got the paper, and read a very edifying description of my charges,—so true, that every feature corresponded to a nicety; but no mention of the topcoats. Nor did I expect it. Neither did I see then, which I did afterwards, that the Jehu2 at Stonehaven was perfectly right in admitting that his fine fares’ clothes were only the worse for roughing it; only he might have said that nothing could be worse,—for the Hue and Cry described their habiliments as so very seedy, that they ran a risk of being shaken to the husk by an ordinary wind. That same afternoon I got Captain Moxey to report my capture to the Aberdeen superintendent, that he might reclaim his ‘proteges,—a request that was immediately complied with. Nor did we fail to make them carry on their backs the topcoats, so that they might make as good an appearance as possible before the Aberdeen authorities. But I was not destined to be done with the topcoats, for, as love or luck would have it, I was, two days afterwards, in Aberdeen at a Circuit trial,—and, as my reputation was pretty bright in the north, I was consulted by the fiscal, who thought that, as I caught the coats and what they contained, I might also catch evidence as to where they had bought them, as well as proof of where they had deposited the cast-off garments. I promised to do my best, and next morning I set off for Edinburgh, passing on my way Dundee. I was sure enough that there was no refitting at Stonehaven,—for, according to Jehu’saccount, there was no time, whatever might be the necessity,—and bonny Dundee held out charms for my wooing, —a reluctant and shy mistress indeed, but I had conquered her before,—nay, in sober truth, a wide and dreary field, with the wind in the tail of my game. Yet the one sticking idea, to which I have already alluded, was there again in my head. The serpent burrows in the sand before casting his skin. They couldn’t go to fine lodgings in that travelling dress of theirs; so, being acquainted so far with the town, I went to the Overgate, where the waifs are thrown up, among the rotten wood, dulse and tangle, and dead star-fish. Got a clue to a likely lodging-house, where tramps find rest to their limbs,—but, alas ! not often to their minds,—up a very close close, then up a stair, at last confronted by a door. Knocked with a detective’s hand, softly and gently; and why not ?—crime angers us no more, however we may lamentit, than does the dead subject the anatomist, who is to lay open the mysteries in that forsaken tenement where once was the warmth of God’s breath. An old woman opened the door,—always old these door-openers, poor souls, for there is no joy outside to them, and they can, at least, let others more hopeful and happy out and in. “ You keep rooms for letting, my good woman T said L “ Ay; do you want lodgings ? ” “ No,” said I, as I stepped in, and sat down; “ but I want a lodger, or rather two.” „ “ You look vexed, guidman,” said she, gazing into my face, which somehow got full of sorrow on the instant. “ You are a mother, no doubt ? ” said I, lugubriously enough, and yet not all a feint; “ but I hope you don’t know what it is to have lost a ne’er-do-weel.” “ Atweel do I,” replied she, “ and mair; but whaur are ye frae ? ” “ Edinburgh.” “ And maybe ye ’ll ken Mr M‘Levy, the thief-catcher ?” she continued. “He grippit my laddie, Geordie, in Leith, and put him in jail; but they tell me he’s no a hard man; and oh! if I could just get somebody to see him, and maybe he would deal gently wi’ him. Ken ye the man ? ” “ I’m rather intimate with him,” said I; “ and if you will tell me your son’s name, I will try what I can do.” “ Geordie Robertson.”
Bad case, I recollected; housebreaking in Leith. “ I will try,” I again said. “ And now one good turn deserves another. My two sons, I fear, are no better than yours—perfect vagabonds. They ran away last week, and I’m just seeking for them to get them home again to their disconsolate mother.” “ Weel, there were twa callants slept ben the house last Thursday,” said she. “ What-like laddies are they ? But, eh, fule that I am, ye wad maybe ken their claes ? ” “ Too well, my good woman; worn and ragged, I fear, and ”—it would be out—“ no topcoats.” “ Topcoats!—the deil a topcoat had they, puir callants ; but, Lord bless you, you maun hae gien them siller, or they maun hae stown it frae ye, for they came in next forenoon wi’ new suits—topcoats an’ a’—rowed up in muckle parcels, and then they despised the auld rags just as if they had been ashamed of them. They tirred to the skin, and awa they gaed like gentlemen, leaving the auld skins, as I may say, just whaur they tuik up the new. I’ll shew ye them.” And trotting away, she returned in a few minutes with the precious wardrobe,—a little the worse for roughing it, but gents’ notwithstanding. “ The very identical clothes,” said I; “ and good evidence—of my misfortunes. Now, I’ll just pin some bits of paper to the coats and breeches. Can you write ? ” “ I can sign my name—no muckle mair; but what for ? ” she added, suspiciously. “ Just in case they should deny that they have brought such a disgrace on their father and mother by wearing such beggarly clothes.” “ To shame them, like ? ” said she, with a faint smile. “ Precisely.” “Just as they do in the foundlings I hae heard o’ some-gate abroad, whaur they keep the duds, to mind the unfortunate creatures o’ what they aince were i ” “ The very thing.” “And a maist sensible thing, sir,” continued the woman; “ but there’s nae care o’ that kind taen wi’ my Geordie.” “ I will see about him when I get to Edinburgh,” said I, as I cut the pieces of paper from the back of an old letter I had; and having got all the articles labelled, I got Mrs Robertson to mark them with her name. And now—“ I will pack them off to Mrs Justice,” said I. “ You will let them remain till I send for them.” “ Nae doot, and thank ye, Mr Justice,” said she. “ But oh ! will you mind that fearfu’ man, M’Levy, and saften him wi’ kindly words; and tell him I’m a lone woman, who looked aye forward to Geordie helping me in my auld age. Ay, just mak your ain case to him, and say that maybe his ain bairns may live to need the help o’ a kindly hand, even like yours, Mr Justice, and maybe ye may saften his heart, and get him to deal mercifully wi’ Geordie Robertson.” “ I will do the best that justice can do for him,” said I, smiling inwardly at so strange a scene,—almost oppressive to me, however, for my playing, as it were, with God’s favours, and repaying the use of His leading hand by a falsehood; which yet, for good ends, so far was justifiable, at least as His own world goes, and we go by necessity along with it.
And bidding Mrs Robertson good-bye, I hastened and got a man to carry the bundles, which I had addressed to the fiscal at Aberdeen, to the coach-office,—thereafter intimating my gift to the good Lady Justice, at the same granite city, by a letter, which I wrote in Mrs Hendry’s inn, near the Fishmarket. So far I had succeeded according to what I have always thought my luck, but which a friend has often told me is something he calls instinctive logic,—words I can’t well detect the meaning of. Whatever it may be called, it must again serve my purpose in respect to those topcoats, the source of which had become a crave. I beat about till I came to “The Globe,” where I entered with that question in my mouth I have put so often, and to so many different kinds of people. Finding a likely face—
“ Did you, about Thursday last, fit out a couple of young men with clothes ?” “ I think I know what you mean, Mr M‘Levy,” said he, smiling in my face,—an Edinburgh shopkeeper come over here, but quite unknown to me there. “ Yes, we did; and what is more, I knew one of the fellows in Edinburgh; but we had no right to refuse their custom, you know.” “ What did they buy of you ? ” asked I. “ Why, whole suits. They were quite flush of money, and I’m rather astonished they did not fear exposure, from the contrast between the shabby outside and the rich pockets within.” “ Any sovereigns ? * said L “ Plenty.”
“ Such gentlemen couldn’t do without topcoats.”
“ Not likely, in this cold weather,—and with delicate constitutions, you know,” smiling. “ And tender training,” I added. “Ay.” “ Read that,” handing him the Aberdeen newspaper, “ and tell me if that description applies.” The young man glanced over the “ Literary Portraits” —“ The very men to a hair.” “ You served them yourself, and can speak to their identity ? ” “ Yes, we don’t forget these customers.” “ Not likely,” said I, as my mind recurred to what I knew of their habits. “ No customer, I suspect, like a newly-enriched thief,—never hucksters, nor haggles, nor chaffers about shillings ? ”
“ No, nor pounds. Then, they get so fanciful. They buy whatever is most fashionable, cost what it may.”
“ I see you know my children,” said I, inclined to be more communicative to this intelligent lad than I generally am. “ Yes ; they put on a red hackle to catch a gudgeon like me.” “ Or a golden pheasant’s feather,” said he; “ no doubt fond of the Dighty3“
“ Or make themselves phantom-minnows, to tempt me to rise more effectually.”
“ Yes, or even a ‘ terrible devil,’ to make sure work,” added this knowing dealer in soft goods. “ Well, but to business,” said I. “ There can be no doubt they got the topcoats from you?” “ The match of that hanging there,” replied he, pointing to a coat. “ The very twin-brother,” said I, as my eye glanced on the ‘ charming’ garment. “Ah, ironed by the very same goose?” “ The same goose.” “ Your name ? ” “ James B________ .” “ Some more gifts to Justice,” I muttered to myself, as I left him, to make a study of any indications I should meet of St Crispin4’s qualities emblazoned over door-heads. I tried only one before I entered a likely shop, into which I was tempted by seeing in the window some showy French goods,—the pheasant’s feathers. “You deal in French boots, Mr G ?” said I, bowing as I entered. “Yes, sir,” replied the man, “but I would recommend our good Scotch make, such as these;” and the garrulous dealer went rattling away in the old there’s- nothing-like-leather way; “ why, sir, these Frenchmen beat us hollow in fine work, but—would you believe it? —they are perfect cobblers at a coarse, useful, crush-clod article. They seem to lose not only their genius but sense in it, just as if they thought they threw away their work on it. No, sir, they can’t comprehend a neat- rough, or a rough-neat, anyhow, and so make a bungle.” “ Let me see those boots in the window,” said I, after allowing his wind fair swing. “Jacques Moin6t, Rue de St Hilaire,” I read out, and compared within, as I remembered the name on those slight and genteel feet-coverings I had helped to draw off from two gentlemen in the office in the High Street of Edinburgh so shortly before. “ Did you sell two pairs of these to a couple of youths on Thursday last ? ” “Yes; they said they had been roughing it in the north, and had got out at elbows a bit; but plenty of money.”
“ Sovereigns ? ”
“I saw they had them, but they paid me with a couple of notes.”
“ How did you come to get notes and yet see the sovereigns?” said I. “ Why, no doubt a little weakness, to shew they were gentlemen; when the one drew out his notes, the other brought forth a handful of the gold bits, and so generous were they to each other, they seemed to strive for the honour of paying.”
“Then you thought them gentlemen ? ”
“ Only from the excuse of roughing it, and the money,” replied he, with a smile; “ otherwise, I would have thought them Q.C.’s; not exactly Queen’s Counsel,” he added drily, “ but queer customers.”
“ Something in that way,” said I, handing him the “ Literary Portraits,” and then watching to study the face of this also rather Q.C.; and truly, if it had been one of the children’s mock phizes, made out of India-rubber, it could not have gone through its twitches of transformation more ludicrously. “ The very men ;” he cried, as he burst out into a laugh, with the identical India-rubber wide mouth; “ the very men, sir. You have got the foot-mark in the soft mud.” “Your name on the door?” I rejoined. “Yes.” “And you can speak to the gentlemen, if you saw them ? ” “ Perfectly. I could have no hesitation.” “ And perfectly willing, I presume ? ” “Yes, if called upon by the authorities.” And so, I finished my labours in Dundee, which were something to amuse me on my journey south. I immediately despatched the names, with a short jotting of precognition, as a companion to the bundles; but, oh, the vanity of human wishes ! The reader will scarcely credit me when I tell him, more pathetically than lies in my way, that these children of mine were insensible to, nay, ungrateful for, all this trouble of their father, Mr Justice. They actually refused my gifts; for when tried at the next Aberdeen Circuit, they pled guilty, without intending amendment; and thus all my trouble was comparatively vain, except that they got “ twelve months ” to think over their ingratitude to their loving but disconsolate father.
James McLevy 