McLevy (17 page)

But all James’s cogitations came back to his professional notions, according as these did with a certain ancient maxim, that

There was nothing for it but to steal the little African and reduce him to slavery. If little things are great to little minds, what must great things be? And surely it couldn’t be
considered a small thing to steal an actor whose powers of laughter-compelling were equal to those of any comedian at the time on the boards, not excepting Sam Cowell himself, whom, indeed, in so
far as regarded the pushing of the burlesque, he in some degree resembled. And steal him James did. Seizing an opportunity when the peripatetic inhabitants of the caravan had gone out to get some
refreshment, after the late labours of the night, he contrived to open a door, to go in where the worn-out actor was reposing in well-earned sleep, and, seizing the unconscious victim, rolled him
up in a piece of horsecloth, to prevent scratching and screaming, and fairly kidnapped him. We are at no liberty to indulge in philanthropic reflections as to the feelings of the victim, only that
he had feelings we must be pretty certain, when he found himself

the last consideration being the only one that James thought of any importance. Neither need we try to fancy the surprise of the show-folk when they found him gone, on whom all
their hopes of success in this world mainly depended.

Nor had James secured his prey without knowing where to take it—nowhere but to Lucky Gibb’s in the Anchor Close, where there resided a number of the softer sex, yet not softer than
the male who was to become their associate, and not inappropriately either, if we look to dispositions and habits, and compare the language of the one with the silence of the other. Nay, the
comparison might be carried so as to be honourable to the new comer, insomuch as Mrs Gibb’s female chimpanzees did not limit their actions to innocent frolic like their little relative, nor
were they even true to their nearer kind, the ourangs, whom they cheated, seduced, and preyed upon, and small pity to these ourangs in particular.

There came next day the show-people to complain to us of the loss of their principal actor, a commodity in our way which you might suppose to be the most easily traced of all stolen things in
the world. Not so fast. Jacko was not pawnable, neither could he be sold like a stolen nigger, nor was this disgrace intended to be put upon him. Then the women were so true to their human fancy,
and so fond of the inhuman—we cannot say inhumane, for fear of ugly comparisons—that they kept him a kind of “lady’s prisonier,” so that I could not discover him any
way. In addition to these difficulties there was a fair at Glasgow, where our showmen behoved to be, and as they left, no doubt with suitable feelings of sorrow, a day or two after, we were left
without a proprietor to whom we could have restored the property.

Having made this auspicious beginning, the next part of James’s stock-in-trade to be looked after was the organ. One might have thought that this was an article more easily got at than the
live property, and yet, when you consider a little, you are apt to come to the conclusion, that to steal an organ-grinder’s musical-box is a little more difficult than to get at Mr
Jackson’s. At least, so it appeared to James, an individual far better able to judge of both the difficulties and facilities of an adventure of this kind than you, I sincerely hope, can be,
or with such as I before the eyes of your most ardent fancies ever will be. And then I might suggest the additional danger arising from the tell-tale nature of the article, as where it has been
known to play a tune, such as “The Blue Bells of Scotland”, too well known to the grinder himself or some one in his confidence. But an organ, though it could not be easily stolen,
might be easily bought with stolen money, or the proceeds of stolen articles, and James saw in this direction his way to fortune. I fairly admit, that, in such calculations, his hope of being
entirely independent of me was not consistent with his earlier aspirations, but he had it in his power, with the means of acting the gentleman always with him, of getting beyond my beat, away into
the sunnier regions of England, or even into the vineyards of France, where he could feed himself and Jacko on grapes, and get the vintage-girls to dance a country-dance, with their castanets, to
the strains of his organ.

That James did not consider the getting of the necessary funds a difficult affair turned out to be clear enough. Even I soon came to have evidence of this in the letter of Mr G——r
from Polmont, which informed me that a shop in that place had been broken open, and a great quantity of soft goods taken therefrom, besides the contents of the till, amounting to five pounds. The
robbers had gone thirds, and it was supposed they had proceeded with the booty to Edinburgh. The account of their persons led me to a suspicion, nothing more, that my hopeful organ-grinder was one,
and, if I was right there, I could not be far wrong in regard to his associates, one of whom, James M’Kenzie, could not be absent when my James was in the way of doing what he called
“good”. But, mark, I didn’t know all this time that James was working up to the organ and monkey pitch. That I ascertained afterwards, and, if I was right as to my man, I had just
the present charge against him. With some notion that I had a right at least to these two, I set about seeking for these hard goods as well as the soft, and after some time began to suspect that
they preferred Glasgow to their native city, perhaps because they didn’t like me. Yet I persevered in the old way, trying every likely place, till at last I thought of Mrs Gibb, as good a
customer to me as the lady of “The Cock and Trumpet”. So one night I went to pay my respects—we never do use cards—and found the good lady in excellent spirits. I was
introduced to her damsels, all collected in what she called her saloon, a barn-like room of considerable dimensions, plentifully lighted with gas, and having, you couldn’t expect it in the
Anchor Close, an old piano, worth thirty shillings, upon which some of her children, who aspired to be musical, could play a few notes, something like “Nid-noddin’ ”.

And upon this instrument one was accordingly trying to play amidst a roar of laughter which I could not for some time comprehend the meaning of, for the object of their mirth was in the midst of
them.

“Well, lasses,” said I, “what’s all the fun?”

“It’s Jacko,” said Mrs Gibb by my side. “They’ve learned him to dance.”

“Oh, my own Jacko!” said I to myself, getting on the instant as keen as any of them.

“It’s Jim Bell’s,” cried Bell Ramsay, a small cricket of a girl, who, having a hold of the monkey, was dancing with him a kind of minuet to the notes of the rickety
instrument.

“And who gave him that fine scarlet coat and silk sash?” said I.

“Jim, to be sure,” cried another, a fat wench, Bess Brunton, who I knew was a favourite of Jim’s.

“He’s going to be an organ-grinder, James is,” added the landlady, “and Jacko is to go about with him.”

And the rest of her speech was lost in another roar, as Jacko, in remembrance of his former performances on the boards, got upon the back of Miss Ramsay, and began plucking her hair, screaming
the while at the top of his voice.

“He’s the merriest little devil in the world,” continued Mrs Gibb. “I don’t know what we would do without him, and then he’s such an amusement to the
gentlemen.”

“And the ladies, too,” said I.

“Ay,” cried the fat one, “Jacko is as good as a budge. He keeps us from ‘the horrors.’ ”

“And that’s not easily done,” said I; “but where is James? does he live here?”

“Oh, you’ve nothing against him now?” cried the favourite again. “He’s quite taken up now that he’s to begin on the honest hook. He’ll soon get the
organ, and I’m to go with him to England.”

“Oh, indeed!” said I, while my thoughts followed James further away. “You’ll have a jolly time of it all three. James will play the organ, you the tambourine, and Jacko
will dance.”

“The very thing! and shan’t we get the money?”

“But who made the jacket?” said I, getting so far professional as to presume, in the midst of so much fun, to think of the soft goods from Polmont.

“Me,” replied the lusty one again.

“And you got the cloth from James?”

“Yes,” and then “No,” was the reply, as she began to gather her wits; “No, I bought it, for we wanted to make the little devil nobby. Stand up, you wretch, and let
the gentleman see your scarlet coat.”

And Jacko was immediately on the top of the piano, dancing in the way he no doubt did when with his old friends in the Grassmarket.

“Well,” said I, “this is so funny a little imp, that I have taken a fancy to him as well as to his scarlet coat,” and laying hold of him, while he screamed louder than
the laugh of the girls, “I’ll take him with me.”

And to be sure the laugh was changed into a cry of perfect amazement as well as anger when they saw me inclined to carry off the very soul, as it seemed, of their “happy land”.

“And what right?” cried she of the tambourine, who probably saw her hopes in as great jeopardy as Jacko.

“Never you mind that, lass,” said I; “you will get Jim to comfort you in the absence of the monkey.”

So I carried off my little man amidst as loud a shout of grief as was ever heard at an Irish wake; nor was it an easy matter, for he did not seem to like to leave his happy quarters among the
women, who spoiled him; and I was not ill pleased when I got my prisoner—an innocent one in this case—deposited in a cell.

Now was my time for James. He would get information from his associate of the fate of the monkey,—and if it was true, as I suspected, that the red jacket was made by the girl out of some
of the Polmont soft goods, he would see his danger, independently of the old charge for pug, and be off. I set a watch at the Anchor Close, though I did not expect much from a quarter whence he
would get information of my seizure of his friend. I had better reasons for finding him somewhere else. At least I was now sure of him after knowing he was in Edinburgh. Being up to an old haunt of
his in West Nicolson Street, I kept pacing there for nearly an entire day, and there accordingly, about four o’clock in the afternoon, I got my eye upon him. He was groggy, and in that
devil-may-care state which comes on like a fever, after a great enterprise, such as the robbing of a shop.

“Well, Jim,” said I, as I stood before him, “how goes?”

“Oh, very well!” with a grandish air; for while the whisky took away his fear, it had probably left his hope of becoming an independent musician and actor—“and how
d’ye do?”

“Pretty well; only I have been sorry at not seeing you of late. What has become of you?”

“Oh, roughing it a bit here and there!” he replied.

“With your friend the monkey?” said I.

“Nothing to do with creatures of that kind. What the devil do you mean?”

“Well,” said I, as my eye became fixed on a fine black satin cravat about his neck, which, from Mr G——r’s letter, I had no doubt, had been once at Polmont,
“since you’re so saucy, I perhaps daren’t ask where you got that elegant choker?”

“Oh, bought it, of course, you know,” he replied, with really wonderful
sang froid
for one who knew himself to be so well known to me; “them things are got cheaper
now, and I only need a scraper to be complete.”

“Ay, and a velvet coat.”

“Nothing of that kind,” he replied.

“Or a red coat?” inquired I.

“No, don’t like soldiering; never did.”

“Except when you drill Jacko in the Anchor Close,” said I, little nettled at his self sufficiency.

“Bosh and bunkum! quite out this time, my Lord Justice-Clerk.”

“Now, master James Bell,” said I, “are you positively certain you didn’t get that satin cravat at Polmont?”

The never a train came to so dead a stand at that station as my fast passenger did now, when he saw that I had so much more serious a plea against him than that of the monkey. A blank look was
my only answer, and I am not sure if he didn’t get instantly sober on the premises.

“Come,” said I, “I want to introduce you to an old friend.”

“M’Kenzie?” he inquired, with a timid and suspicious look.

“Not at present,” I replied; “you will meet him elsewhere. Another gentleman who wears a scarlet coat, the cloth of which also came from Polmont.”

But even the mention of his facetious friend failed to remove his gloom, and as I saw I could get no more out of him, I took him to my quarters, where I was as good as my word, introducing him
with appropriate ceremony to his old acquaintance, Jacko. But so far I had lost my pains, for they showed no affection towards each other, if they didn’t exhibit manifest tokens of mutual
hatred.

I had now my other friends to discover—M’Kenzie and his companion, whose name I don’t find in my book. So I made my way again to the Anchor Close, where on the former occasion
I had made a rather indifferent survey. I did not find what I wanted—the stolen property—but I found something that, perhaps, might suit my purpose as well. There was Bess sitting in a
loose wrapper, and a fit of the horrors.

And now, my young ones still outside of these awful dens, and whom I cannot call
my
children, because you are not yet under my protection, just receive a little caution from me, who am
so well able to give it. I have heard of some of you, very pretty too, and, therefore, the more in need of my suggestion, looking after these creatures—perhaps once your playmates—with
their gaudy dresses, and faces whiter and redder than what they should be by nature, ay, my darlings, just as if you were envious of some elevation they have attained, and saying of one to your
neighbour, (I have heard it said,) “How has
she
got so well on in the world? Set her up with her silks and satins and magenta ribbons, and I can scarcely get a coarse barege. How
lucky some girls are!” Then you don’t think, perhaps, that all this happiness is merely outside, and you don’t, because you can’t, see what is within. Well, when you get
into your envious humour again, just mutter the two little words to yourselves—
THE HORRORS
. You may not comprehend their meaning altogether—I sincerely hope you
never will—but you may depend upon it, it is something very terrible; ay, worse than hunger, and thirst, and cold, and nakedness—I was going to say death itself; and though I have not
tried
that
yet, I know from what I have seen and heard of the closing agonies, that they do not equal the fearful and devilish tortures of “the horrors”. Just keep this in mind
whenever you see any of these dressed-up and painted miserables, and there’s no fear of you.