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THE QUATERNION, 90 THE OPENING OF THE COURT—THE OLD WOMAN OF GILMERTON, 107 THE MOTHER AND DAUGHTER, 119 THE GRANDMOTHER AND THE DUMB BOY, 132 THE STRAY WAIFS, 145 THE RELATIVE, 154 THE STUDY FOR THE ARTIST, 163 DAFT JAMIE, 179 THE BRISK LITTLE OLD WOMAN, 194 THE DISCOVERY, 202 THE COMPLICITY OF THE DOCTORS, 216 THE TRIAL, 230 THE JAIL, 251 VEJOVE, 259 THE EXHIBITION, 271 THE PROSECUTION AGAINST HARE, 283 THE HUNT OUT, 292 THE FINAL CAUSE, 306

 

 

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First Appearance in Surgeon’s Square.

When the gloaming was setting in of an evening in the autumn of 1827, and when the young students of Dr Knox’s class had covered up those remains of their own kind from which they had been trying to extract nature’s secrets, one was looking listlessly from the window into the Square. The place was as quiet as usual, silent and sad enough to gratify a fancy that there existed some connexion between the stillness and the work carried on from day to day and night to night in these mysterious recesses; for, strange enough, whatever curiosity might be felt by the inhabitants as to what was done there, few were ever seen within that area except those in some way connected with the rooms. So was it the more likely that our young student’s eye should have been attracted by the figure of a man moving stealthily under the shade of the houses. Then he looked more intently to ascertain whether he was not one of the regular staff of body-snatchers who supplied “the thing,” as they called it. But no; the stranger, whoever he might be, was neither “Merryandrew,” nor “the Spune,” nor “the Captain,” nor any other of the gouls,—some half-dozen,—yet he would have done no discredit to the fraternity either as to dress or manner: little and thick-set, with a firm round face, small eyes, and Irish nose, a down-looking sleazy dog, who, as he furtively turned his eye up to the window, seemed to think he had no right to direct his vision beyond the parallel of a man’s pocket.

The student, who could dissect living character no less than he could dead tissue, immediately suspected that this meditative “worshipper of the sweets of eve” was there upon business, but, being probably new to the calling, he was timid, if not bashful. Yes, bashful; we do not retract the word, comely as it is, for where, in all this wide world of sin and shamelessness, could we suppose it possible to find a man who lives upon it, and is shone on by its sun, and cheered by its flowers, capable of selling the body of his fellow-creature for gold without having his face suffused with blood, cast up by the indignant heart, at least for the first time? And perhaps it was the first time to this new-comer. But in whatever condition the strange man might be, the student had got over his weakness, that is, nature’s strength, and, resolving to test the lounger, he went down, and, shewing himself at the door, beckoned the bashful one forward.

“Were you looking for any one?” said he, as he peered into the down-looking face, where there never had been a blush.

“’Mph!—are you Dr Knox?”

“No; but I am one of his students,” was the reply of the young man, who was now nearly satisfied of the intention of the stranger.

“And, sure, I’m not far wrong thin, afther all.”

“And I may suit your purpose as well, perhaps.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, speak out; don’t be afraid. Have you got ‘the thing?’”

“Doun’t know what you mean.”

“Ah! not an old hand, I perceive. You were never here before?”

“No.”

“And don’t know what to say?”

“No.”

And the bashful man again turned his gloomy eyes to the ground, and didn’t know what to do with those hands of his, which were not made for kid—perhaps for skin of another kind. And shouldn’t this hardened student have been sorry for a man in such confusion; but he wasn’t—nay, he had no sympathy with his refinement.

“Why, man, don’t you speak out?” he said impatiently.

“There’s some one coming through the Square there,” was the reply, as the man looked furtively to a side.

“Come in here, then,” said the student, as he