The Court of Cacus; Or, The Story of Burke and Hare. Alexander Leighton

minstrel, he had enjoyed so small a portion in this world. Yet how little one knows of the fate to which he may be destined! Who could have supposed that Sandy M‘Nab, about whom nobody cared more than to give him an occasional penny, and who was left to die in an hospital, would become as famous, within a limited space, as Patroclus. It seemed that Cullen and some others had, according to their custom, appropriated the body of the minstrel, so far as to have it safely deposited in the box, and that box carefully placed below the window waiting for the application of the rope, whereby it was to be drawn to the upper regions; but in the meantime, some three or four of Monro’s Trojans, jealous of the Greeks, had got over the wall with the same intention that had fired their opponents. Though the night was dark, with only an occasional glimpse of a shy moon, who got herself veiled every now and then, as if ashamed of those deeds of man enacted under her light, the collegians soon ascertained that their envied minstrel had been exhumed, yea, that that body, which once contained a spirit all but cosmopolitan, was cribbed and confined in Cullen’s insatiable box. The discovery inflamed an original intention of mere body-snatching into an emprise of stratagetic war against their professional foes; and straightway they commenced to remove the box to the other side of the yard, with a view to getting it hoisted over the wall. But the work had scarcely commenced, when the watchful enemy, who, in fact, all the time were busily undoing the rope in the hall above, observed the stratagem below; and issuing forth, some three or four of them, under the influence of something more like chivalry than the stealing of bodies, they commenced an attack upon the intruders, which was met by a stout resistance. The box had been removed to nearly the middle of the yard, and round the sacred centre where lay the dead Patroclus, the battle raged with a fierceness not unworthy of the old and immortal conflict. At one time Sandy was in possession of the Barclayens, at another in that of the Monroites; so that the old quotation, which was subsequently incorporated in heroics, was perhaps never, in all time, so applicable,—“Danai Trojanique cadaver manus commiserunt.” Taken and retaken, and guarded with menaces, the inner contest was, meanwhile, illustrated by hand-to-hand fights over the swelling tumuli, perhaps not less glorious in their small way than many which have involved the fate of a kingdom; and yet the object of the conflict was the body of a wandering beggar. Nor is it known how long this affray might have lasted, if some people in the neighbourhood, having heard the uproar, had not threatened, by getting to the top of the wall, to bring the champions before the authorities. The Monroites fled, and the object of all this contention was left in the hands of those who, by possession, had at least the prior right. The box was hoisted to the rooms amidst the acclamations of the conquerors. “Sic hi alacres cadaver extulerunt e bello.”

      The want of this fruitful field behoved afterwards, on the advent of Knox, to be supplied by increased exactions over the country; and hence came a more perfect organisation of a staff, composed of men who, without the excuse of a stimulus for science, were attracted to the work by the bribe of high payments. We have already seen to what extent that bribe reached; and whatever otherwise may be thought of those grim minions of the moon, they had more to stir the low passions of human nature than those older minions on the borders, who, for the sake of living steers, often made dead bodies. Science became the Nemesis of the dearest and most sacred affections; and what may appear strange enough, the students themselves engaged in the work with a feeling, as we have hinted, approaching to chivalry. They were sworn knights of the fair damsel Science, though the rites were those of Melpomene, with the grotesque shapes of those of Thalia. The midnight enterprises had charms for them, but they were death to those feelings of a Christian people, which require to be viewed as a natural and necessary part of a social fabric, to be tampered with only to the ruin of virtue. Among these knights at an earlier period stood Robert Liston, whose hardihood and coolness in such midnight adventures could only be equalled by his subsequent surgical handlings; and like all other vigorous and enthusiastic men, he had the power of enlisting associates, warmed by the fire he himself felt.

      A favourite theatre for these dark deeds was the banks of the Forth, along which are to be seen many of those small unprotected graveyards which, attached to villages, are as the shadow of the life that is within them. Yes, grave or merry as the hamlet may be, that shadow is never awanting—often within the sound of the marriage-dance, and refusing to be illumined by the light of man’s earthly happiness. Sometimes in poetics called the gnome that points to eternity, no man can but for a few brief moments of seducing joy keep his eye from the contemplation of it; and, whether he can or not, he must be content to lie within its dark outline. These are common thoughts, which are sometimes condemned as a species of moralising; yet surprise will not the less pass even into vertigo when we think of individuals of the same species reversing rites which even lower instincts shudder to touch. We are always looking for seriousness in nature, and it is long till we are forced to confess that she is continually mocking us.

      “Usque adeo, res humanas vis abdita quædam Obterit et pulchros fasceis sævasque secureis Proculcare ac LUDIBRIO SIBI HABERE videtur.”

      On one occasion our anatomist, having got a companion up to the point of courage, resolved to pay a night-visit to one of these outlying places, where, from information he had gained, there had been deposited an object which had a charm to him other than that of the mere “thing.” The man had died of a disease which the country practitioner had reported to Liston as something which had stimulated his curiosity, but which he could not be permitted by the friends to inquire into in the manner so much desired by doctors. The two knights got themselves arrayed as sailors—with the jacket, the sou’-wester, the unbraced trousers, striped shirt, and all the rest—and getting on board a pinnace, made their way to Cures. They had on arrival some time to pass before the coming of the eery hour when such work as they had on hand could be performed with the least chance of interruption. The night, as the principal performer described it, was as dark as the narrow house whereof they were to deprive the still inhabitant, so that even with the assistance of the doctor’s apprentice, who went along with them, they had the greatest difficulty to discover the limited spot of their operations. But Liston had encountered such difficulties before, and then “what mattered if they should take the wrong one?” for with the exception of the pathological curiosity, as in this case, these children of science had no more scruples of choice. In a trice the game was bagged, as they sometimes described the work, and the boy, getting alarmed, flew off with the necessary injunction of secrecy, which only added to his alarm, as they could plainly perceive by the sounds of his rapid receding steps heard in the stillness of the haunted spot.

      But the work there was generally the least difficult of such enterprises, for as yet the people had not throughout the rural districts been roused to the necessity of the night-watch, which afterwards became so common. The danger lay in the conveyance, which in this, as in most other instances, was by the means of a pair of strong shoulders. The burden was accordingly hoisted on Liston’s broad back, and the two, stumbling over the green tumuli, got to the skirts, and away as far as they could from habitations. The field side of a thick hedge was the selected place of deposit until the morning gave them light for achieving the further migrations of the unconscious charge; and then there was to be sought out a place of rest for the two tars, wearied with travelling all day homewards in the north after so long a cruise in the South Sea. Nor was it long before a welcome light proclaimed to Liston, who knew the country, the small wayside inn, in which they would repose during the night. And there, to be sure, they got that easy entrance, if not jolly welcome, so often accorded to this good-hearted set of men. They were soon in harmony with the household, and especially with a “Mary the maid of the inn,” who saw peculiar charms in seamen in general, and in our friend Robert in particular; nor was the admiration all on one side, though Mary’s predilection for his kind was, as matters turned out, to be anything but auspicious to the concealed students. Then the coquetting was helped by a little warm drink, if not a song from the companion about a certain “sheer hulk,” which lay somewhere else than behind the hedge.

      All this, be it observed, had taken place by the kitchen fire—an appropriate place for benighted seamen; and it being now considerably beyond twelve, they were about to be shewn their room, when they were suddenly roused by a loud shout outside, the words, “Ship, ahoy!” being more distinctly heard by our quasi tars than they perhaps relished, for, after all, neither of our students, however they might impose upon Mary, felt very comfortable under the